New York’s development agency should have done a more thorough environmental review of Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards basketball arena and housing project before approving it in 2009, a Supreme Court judge ruled yesterday. The ruling is unlikely to disturb construction at the $4.9 billion project’s first phase, the Wall Street Journal reported, but the judge did request a second review of the second phase.
The ruling is a blow to Empire State Development, which approved the use of eminent domain to allow for the controversial Brooklyn development in 2006.
A spokesperson for ESD said it “believes that it complied with all laws applicable to the project.” [more]

Brooklyn BreweryMayor Michael Bloomberg and Steve Hindy, Brooklyn Brewery president, cut the ribbon today on Brooklyn Brewery’s new brewhouse, next door to its existing facility on North 11th Street in Williamsburg, which it has operated since 1996. The $8 million expansion increases the brewery’s production capacity to 120,000 barrels per year, from 12,000. With the expansion, the brewery has added 10 jobs and it expects to hire another 15 people in the next two years. “The expansion of our Brooklyn Brewery means that most of our growth in the next three years will be in Brooklyn,” Hindy said. “We expect to double our sales in the next three years.” TRD [more]

Hunter’s Point (Source: NYC Economic Development Corp.)

The city took possession of 30 acres of western Queens riverfront
property this month where it is creating plans to build the city’s
largest middle-income housing project since the 1970s, known as Hunters
Point South. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the state’s Empire
State Development transferred the property May 20 to the city, Lisa
Willner, a spokesperson for the state development agency, said. The
transfer was in two parts, with 24 acres being transferred to a city
agency that was not immediately identified, and six acres to the city’s
Economic Development Corporation (EDC), said Andrew Brent, a spokesperson
for Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The city will take title to the EDC
properties soon, he said. Port Authority spokesperson Steve Coleman put the sales tag at $100 million for the 30 acres. [more]