|
The construction of Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards will enter a new phase next month when three major streets are permanently wiped off the New York City grid to accommodate the developer’s basketball arena.
State officials announced on Monday that Fifth Avenue between Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, plus two adjacent blocks of Pacific Street, will be closed starting on Feb. 1 to accommodate construction.
The streets will not reopen if the arena is built.
The controversial street de-mapping has long been a part of the proposed Atlantic Yards mega-development, but the announcement of the closures of Fifth Avenue, plus Pacific Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues and Vanderbilt and Carlton avenues, were criticized as premature by project opponents.
“They’re taking the streets prematurely,” said Dan Goldstein, the spokesman for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn. “We’ll be challenging that [street seizure], which is part of [the state’s use of] eminent domain.”
Since leaping one of the last remaining major legal hurdles in late November, Ratner has moved forward with his project far more rapidly than a Nets fast-break. And in December, he sold $511 million in tax-free bonds — roughly half the money needed for the arena.
Ratner also installed “Future home of the Barclays Center” signs around that time. The street closures indicate that the pace of construction will likely intensify.
Still, the proposed traffic changes are relatively minor compared to the “Fourth to Flatbush two-step” that will close Fourth Avenue north of Atlantic Avenue. In the proposed traffic model, Downtown-bound drivers on Fourth Avenue will be forced to turn right on Pacific Street and then left on Flatbush Avenue to continue their journey.
A spokesman from the Empire State Development Corporation, the quasi-public state agency overseeing the mega-project, could not be reached before The Brooklyn Paper’s eminent online deadline.
©2010 Community Newspaper Group
By submitting this comment, you agree to the following terms:
You agree that you, and not BrooklynPaper.com or its affiliates, are fully responsible for the content that you post. You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening or sexually-oriented material or any material that may violate applicable law; doing so may lead to the removal of your post and to your being permanently banned from posting to the site. You grant to BrooklynPaper.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual and fully sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part world-wide and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.
Past issues
The Paper in print
RSS feeds
Email Alerts
Enlarge this image
Print this story
digg
del.icio.us