Forest City Ratner is pushing back the expected completion date for the prefabricated B2 tower at the firm’s long-delayed Atlantic Yards project.
The 22-acre Atlantic Yards site has been a work in progress for 10 years, and is increasingly coming under fire for not yet producing any housing units, the New York Times reported. The project’s modular B2 tower, which kicked off construction in December, was said to be scheduled for completion within 18 months. But now, as that deadline nears, the projected date has been pushed back to late 2015.
Executives at the Shanghai-based Greenland Holding Group, which snapped up a 70 percent stake in the project for roughly $200 million in December, are pushing for the entire Atlantic Yards complex to be completed within eight years.
In the meantime, MaryAnne Gilmartin, chief executive of Forest City Ratner, has been meeting with Alicia Glen, deputy mayor for housing and economic development, to discuss the possibility of adding more subsidies for affordable housing.
“We’re going to drive a tough but fair bargain so we can get this project moving,” Glen told the Times. “We’re not happy about the pace of construction. But we think that modular is something we should continue to pursue across the city.” [NYT] — Julie Strickland