Pacific Park: What’s the damage, what’s the gain?
Pacific Park, originally Atlantic Yards, is estimated to increase the population of Prospect Heights by nearly 70%. What does this mean for the neighborhood?
Real-estate prices have already begun to go up. Some retail spaces have doubled in rent. And while many were counting on Pacific Park’s promised affordable housing, increasing apartment rent is forcing them out before its completion.
Pacific Park began as “Atlantic Yards.” It was originally devised by developer Forest City Ratner and designed in part by Frank Gehry (who was later taken off of the project). Forest City Ratner has since partnered up with a Chinese developer, Greenland Holding Group, which now holds 70 percent stake in the company.
The question for most current Prospect Heights residents is whether either company — or the people it is recruiting to move into its shiny new buildings — have any stake in their community. What does Pacific Park’s construction mean? For businesses, for residents, for the character — once thought unchangeable — of Prospect Heights and its surrounding neighborhoods?
When we came here 25 years ago, I really thought that this would be a place that would change very slowly, that it would kind of always be this way. — Gib Veconi, chair of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council (PHNDC)
Prospect Heights is a neighborhood known for its sense of community and its historic buildings. Home to the Brooklyn Public Library, the Brooklyn Museum, and countless beautiful old brownstones, its identity is intertwined with its architecture. It is also intertwined with the people who inhabit that architecture. Because of the rapid development in the area and rising rent prices, however, the many current residents feel either stuck, like they need to leave, or as if they are waiting to be kicked out.
Pacific Park is an enormous undertaking:
By 2025 — its scheduled date of completion — it will have brought in an estimated new 13,500 residents. That’s 66.7 percent of Prospect Heights’ current population (20,228), according to PHNDC.
“We believe we’re building a neighborhood," MaryAnne Gilmartin, president and CEO of Forest City Ratner, has said. Unfortunately, it may be one that drastically affects Prospect Heights and other neighborhoods but is emotionally removed enough not to care about the damage it causes. In other words, worry hangs in the air that new residents just won’t care — or even know — what change they bring.
The Barclays Center, part of the Atlantic Yards project, has already been constructed and has transformed its surrounding area.
Prospect Heights — its quiet, brownstone-filled neighbor— remains mostly secluded from the brunt of the project thus far. It can’t expect to hide for long, however. At least three buildings are scheduled to open this year, according to Curbed, and one is right on Vanderbilt, PH’s main avenue.
Of course, the project makes promise of positive change. Affordable housing is to make up 2,250 of the 6,430 apartments (35%), according to the New York Times. Businesses will thrive due to population increase, and more commercial space will be built in time to keep supply and demand in balance.
The problem is that businesses are having to pay now as if they are thriving: building owners are increasing rent as if the 13,000 newbies had already moved in, when in fact not one Pacific Park resident has moved in yet. And old residents can’t wait for affordable housing much longer, as their current housing continues to become increasingly unaffordable.
So: What happens to this… →
… When this starts to spill over? →
How will Pacific Park — whether it creates an entirely new neighborhood or simply adds to old ones — create change? Will the change be good or bad? Will it affect the already uneasy sense of home that exists in Prospect Heights?
In my next few posts I’ll delve into Prospect Heights — its people, its places, where its sense of community lies — and ask, is this home? And will it still be home when all those new people move in?
