Cirrus, LCOR Pitch New Pacific Park Plan

Developers on Tuesday laid out the “contours of a plan” for seven remaining sites at Pacific Park in Brooklyn, describing a development that would add thousands of housing units to what was previously approved.

During a public workshop, executives from Cirrus Real Estate Partners and LCOR, the project’s new development team, pitched a plan that would result in taller, but fewer towers, and ultimately net 9,000 housing units for the megadevelopment (including those already built). The previous plan called for a total of 6,430 units.

If this version is pursued, the development would include five towers, instead of six, on sites that will require a platform to be built over active train tracks between Pacific Street and Atlantic Avenue. Density from the eliminated tower, dubbed B8 and located at the corner of Carlton and Atlantic avenues, would be shifted to the other sites. Meanwhile, B8 would become green space.

The total development, formerly called Atlantic Yards and first proposed over two decades ago, would result in 9.6 million square feet, compared to the previously planned 8 million. The average height of the project’s buildings would be 550 feet, instead of 350 feet.

The proposals are not final, and any changes will require amendments to the state’s general project plan, a method outside the city’s land use process that lays out the parameters of a project. That will be a separate process from the public workshops.

It remains to be seen how community members and elected officials, long critical of how the project has been carried out, will feel about the final framework as it takes shape.

A taller, more feasible vision

“We’re here tonight to present a feasible plan, not the final plan,” said LCOR’s Anthony Tortora.

The changes, according to the developers, would speed up construction of housing, while also ensuring that more open space is part of the plan.

Cirrus’ Joseph McDonnell explained that shifting residential density from B8, which presented logistical challenges, would lead to faster housing construction. Most of that square footage would be moved to solid ground, rather than atop a platform. In other words, to areas where it is easier to build.

“This is a very constrained site. We’re not here to sugarcoat it,” McDonnell said. “We’re here to take what we’ve been given, and it’s imperfect, it’s an imperfect plan from a very imperfect development, and try to achieve more affordability and more open space.”

The development team, he said, is guided by wanting to build “more affordable housing sooner,” to add more contiguous open space and to ensure the affordable housing is available to a range of income levels. Given those concepts, he said it may make sense not to build on B8.

“I think what separates us is the thought around restraint,” he said,

The team also proposed shifting development rights from a public plaza in front of Barclays — once envisioned as a Frank Gehry-designed office tower called “Miss Brooklyn” — to build two towers on what is known as site 5, across the street from Barclays and currently home to a P.C. Richard & Son and a former Modell’s that was recently converted into a youth basketball training facility. Tuesday’s workshop was held at the latter.

The towers on site 5 would rise a maximum of 775 feet, higher than the previously approved 620 feet, though even taller towers were previously contemplated. The developers are thinking of focusing the income levels of the affordable units on moderate- to middle-income tenants, with rents capped at levels affordable to those earning at most 130 percent of the area median income. The previously approved rents were affordable to those earning between 40 percent and 160 percent of the AMI.

Decades of delays

Even the presentation of a rough draft of a new plan for Pacific Park represents a step forward for the long-delayed project. The project was first announced in 2003, and in the two decades since, it has faced various legal and economic challenges, in addition to the individual financial troubles of the developers who have come and gone from the project.

Nine buildings (including the Barclays Center) have been completed as part of the project, with more than 3,200 apartments built, by original developers Forest City Ratner, Greenland USA and other developers who, over the years, have taken over individual sites.

A joint venture led by Cirrus and LCOR took over the remaining seven sites (eight when including the plaza’s development rights) through a foreclosure auction last month, after Greenland USA defaulted on nearly $350 million in loans tied to the properties. Greenland, as well as the U.S. Immigration Fund and Fortress, are also part of the joint venture, but won’t have an active role in managing the development

Empire State Development, the state agency overseeing the project, held the workshop on Tuesday to solicit general feedback from the community about what they would like to see accomplished by the project. This was the first of four workshops planned, and the first time the development team publicly provided information about their visions for the sites.

At one table during the workshop, attendees said they wanted to see “truly affordable housing,” more oversight of the project and, ultimately, they wanted the project to be completed.

The workshop got off to a bumpy start when the venue’s microphone broke and ESD tried to move forward with the presentation without one. That didn’t go over well with some attendees who declared that they couldn’t hear the first speaker.

After a brief delay, ESD procured a replacement microphone from P.C. Richards next door.

Some elected officials attended the workshop, including Assembly member Jo Anne Simon, Council member Shahana Hanif and Sen. Jabari Brisport. Several attendees were also wearing shirts with union logos, including from the Laborers’ International Union of North America. Construction union pension funds will help finance Pacific Park, as part of a deal Cirrus reached with the city and the Building and Construction Trades Council last year.

Hanif, whose district includes site 5, said she viewed the workshop as a “fresh start.” She noted her concern with penalties that Greenland was supposed to pay for failing to meet a May 2025 deadline.

Under a 2014 agreement, the developer was required to finish the project’s 2,250 affordable apartments (at this point, 876 are left) by the end of May, or pay $2,000 per unfinished unit for every month that the apartments went without a temporary certificate of occupancy.

But when Greenland failed to meet the deadline, ESD declined to enforce the penalties, citing concerns that the developer would sue and further delay the project. Instead, the new development team will pay $12 million toward an affordable housing fund, which will be paid in installments. The state has emphasized, however, that it retains the right to collect penalties if future benchmarks are not met.

“They sort of got away with it,” Hanif said of the fines, while acknowledging that she understood the state’s concerns over litigation. “I think it is going to be important if things mess up, that the penalties that are in place, the accountability measures that are in place, really do get implemented and are adhered to by the developer management team.”