Sunday, July 1, 2007

Lawsuit exposes AY plan on eggshells

Looks like someone's been 'gilding the lily' just a bit:

...the developer, Forest City Ratner, and state officials overseeing the project have resisted divulging much information about the project’s financial structure, confining those criticisms to the realm of speculation.

Official Sees Possible Risk in Big Project in Brooklyn

That debate may be revived because of a lawsuit that has wrung free hundreds of pages of internal documents from the Empire State Development Corporation, the state agency overseeing the project. An analysis of the documents suggests that the Atlantic Yards behemoth — 8 million square feet of apartments, offices, stores and an arena planned for 22 acres near Downtown Brooklyn — may in fact be a delicate beast.

...Forest City’s calculations appear to reflect only a modest increase in costs over roughly a decade of construction. A condominium tower scheduled to open in 2013 has hard costs of $314 a square foot; another one, opening in 2015, has an estimated hard cost of $324 a square foot.

One developer, who asked not to be named for fear of angering the city and state officials who support Atlantic Yards, whistled when told of the estimates.

“They aren’t really saying that, are they?” he said.

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