Design Absent in Public Re-Review of Atlantic Yards Project
With Frank Gehry out and Ellerbe Becket in on Forest City Ratner’s recession-battered Atlantic Yards project, no one is sure what the mixed-use development will look like. With the estimated price tag approaching $5 billion, the Atlantic Yards is now back in public review, even though there’s nothing to look at just yet. According to The New York Observer, the new renderings won’t be ready until fall, after the the public re-review period has closed.
“We do not expect a formal review process [of the renderings] by the public,” said state official Darren Bloch at a public hearing last week. “We expect to see the renderings by Forest City Ratner; we expect ourselves, the city, to weigh in on those to some degree, but we do not expect a formal presentation to the public to accept comment from that.” Can they do that? “The argument of the officials and Forest City Ratner is that the original approval from 2006 provided for design guidelines,” notes the Observer‘s Eliot Brown. “And so long as the arena falls in line with those (which they say it will), then they are doing what is required of them at this point.” For up-to-the-minute updates on the project, including video of the “orchestrated disruption” at Wednesday’s meeting, check out Norman Oder‘s tenacious “watchdog” blog, Atlantic Yards Report.
