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Forest City Ratner

1 By Daniel Edward Rosen 1/10 11:06am

power broker

Bachelorette winner JP Rosenbaum. (Photo by Kiki Conway)

JP Rosenbaum: Construction Manager By Day, Bachelorette Winner By Night

Want to vet JP Rosenbaum as the construction manager for your next development?

All one has to do is ask the housewives, teenagers, bloggers, reality TV fiends, and just about anyone who’s stood near a magazine rack while waiting in a grocery line, and they will uniformly say that he is the “cute and sweet” chap who swept Ashley Hebert—the titular character in last year’s version of ABC’s The Bachelorette—off her dainty feet.

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By Daniel Geiger 1/04 9:45am

lease beat

The Nets are moving to 15 MetroTech.

New Jersey Nets Ink Office Deal at MetroTech Center

The New Jersey Nets are taking another step closer to becoming Brooklyn’s first professional sports team since the Dodgers walked away from the borough almost 55 years ago, sources revealed to The Commercial Observer yesterday.

The team is relocating its corporate headquarters from East Rutherford to Downtown Brooklyn, where the organization is taking 35,145 square feet at the office building 15 MetroTech Center. The Nets will take the space for between five and 10 years at rents in the $30s per square foot, said sources.

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2 By Matt Chaban 12/19/11 5:34pm

Troubling Developments

Visas, ahoy! (Tishman Construction)

New York [Hearts] EB-5 Visas

It turns out the EB-5 visa has won fans beyond Atlantic Yards, where Bruce Ratner has been trying to use the program to gin up funds for his prefabulous apartment towers.

Over the past four years, developers in the New York area have raised upwards of $1 billion through the visas-for-cash program, according to an investigation in The Times. During that period, EB-5 applications across the country have nearly quadrupled, to 3,800, as the Obama administration has been promoting the program strongly. Read More

3 By Matt Chaban 12/12/11 2:25pm

An Arena Grows in Brooklyn

Raise high the roof beams, Mr. Ratner. (SHoP_

How Invested Is Bruce Ratner In Prefab? Oh, Only a Few Million

Last week, The Observer looked at Bruce Ratner's plans for a prefabricated Atlantic Yards project—whether he was serious about the project and whether he could achieve the steep 20 percent savings he claimed for the modular building process. A number of real estate professionals were skeptical on both counts, but they all pointed to the developers out-sized investment in prefab technology as an indicator of his seriousness. Now we know just how much of an investment that has been. Read More

5 By Matt Chaban 12/07/11 6:40pm

Machers

We've been dreaming prefab dreams for decades. (Getty)

The Mod Squad: Will Bruce Ratner Transform the Way New York Builds, or Is Prefab Another Project Too Far?

For nine years now, Bruce Ratner has talked of transforming Brooklyn with his Atlantic Yards project. Bringing professional sports back to the borough, creating a new skyline, “a neighborhood practically from scratch,” as architect Frank Gehry once described it. There would be union jobs and affordable housing for all to enjoy.

As of now, only basketball and a handful of those jobs are guaranteed, all of which took three times as long as originally planned. Mr. Ratner and his partners like to blame the economy and the holdouts who sued to save their property, but the fact remains, they are running well behind schedule, possibly even in violation of previous commitments made to the state when the project was approved.

To catch up, Forest City Ratner has come up with a novel solution for myriad problems with his project: modular construction. More than transforming Brooklyn, Mr. Ratner may transform the way the entire city, even the world, builds. At least that is his hope.

“It’s taken us a while to get there on the architecture,” Mr. Ratner told The Observer last month on the day he unveiled his new plans for a modular approach at Atlantic Yards. “We did a lot of work to make sure it was something appropriate, in fitting in with the arena and a good reflection on Brooklyn, the city and our country.”

He is not alone in his optimism, either. Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 11/16/11 11:45am

Controversies

The scene of the crime.

SUIT: Forest City Broke Union Promises

A group of Brooklyn residents who took part in a job training program tied to Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards development project claims they were given false promises of union membership at the end of the program, according to a Federal lawsuit filed yesterday.

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3 By Matt Chaban 10/13/11 10:14am

An Arena Grows in Brooklyn

Crazy for cranes. (Brownstoner

The Mysterious Property Values of Atlantic Yards

Like all NIMBY battles, the fight against Atlantic Yards ultimately comes down to a matter of property values. One of the justifications for the project was that this corner of Brooklyn was blighted. The neighbors already living there certainly took issue with such characterizations—hello, Dan Goldstein!—but now the Post takes a close look at exactly how the new arena and still-born apartments are affecting property values. Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/11/11 1:21pm

Week In Review

To Prefab or Not to Prefab: Atlantic Yards Design Decision Will Be Made This Year

Prefabricated buildings have not been such a hot topic of conversation since Buckminster Fuller passed away, but that is about all anyone can talk about at Atlantic Yards anymore. On the one hand, it could signal a paradigm shift in how New York City builds; on the other, it goes against many of the employment promises Forest City Ratner made when the project won support from politicians and labor unions. Read More

5 By Matt Chaban 10/04/11 4:48pm

An Arena Grows in Brooklyn

About those apartment buildings... (SHoP Architects)

To Prefab or Not to Prefab: Atlantic Yards Design Decision Will Be Made This Year

Prefabricated buildings have not been such a hot topic of conversation since Buckminster Fuller passed away, but that is about all anyone can talk about at Atlantic Yards anymore. On the one hand, it could signal a paradigm shift in how New York City builds, on the other, it goes against many of the employment promises Forest City Ratner made when the project won support from politicians and labor unions. With building plans recently filed, the decision on what to do is getting close. How close? The Observer asked Maryanne Gilmartin exactly that.

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10 By Matt Chaban 10/04/11 9:30am

An Arena Grows in Brooklyn

SitDown-DanielGoldstein1H_0

Is Dan Goldstein Really As Bad As Bruce Ratner Just Because He Wants a Renovation?

Daniel Goldstein spent years opposing Bruce Ratner’s outside Atlantic Yards development in his backyard—and on top of his house—until he finally gave in and made an even $3 million on the deal. He has since used that money to buy an $812,000 rowhouse in the South Slope, which was purchased in May, according to property records. (Some deal, a wife and a new house, and all it took was years of strife and threat of eviction.)

Like so many other homeowners in the city, Mr. Golodstein is planning a rooftop and rear-yard addition to his new home. In what might be construed as an ironic twist--the Daily News certainly sees it that way—Mr. Goldstein’s new neighbors do not appreciate his home-improvement project.

It’s NIMBY versus NIMBY.

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By Jotham Sederstrom 7:37pm

Brooklyn

Big Deal Pending at Ratner’s Metrotech

Polytechnic Institute of New York University, the private engineering college in downtown Brooklyn, is nearing a deal for approximately 9,000 square feet of office and administrative space at Metrotech Center, sources familiar with the process told The Observer yesterday.

Currently occupying space at the Forest City Ratner-owned 5 and 6 MetroTech as well as nearby space Read More