It might be hard to remember, but the Barclays Center wasn’t supposed to be the only gigantic thing built in the Atlantic Yards project. The reason it was supposed to be such a boon to Brooklyn, aside from boosting or huge country music scene, was that Atlantic Yards was supposed to come with oodles of housing. The Times took a look at what’s up with said housing and found a bunch of delays ahead, along with a shift in how the buildings are actually going to go up. If they ever go up, before World War III ends up starting over some disputed piece of Ukraine and we all have to live in underground shelters due to nuclear winter.
If you’ve been following along to the saga, you’ll remember that developer Forest City Ratner chose to make the buildings with prefabricated apartments, assembled in a nearby factory. The whole point of this was that it would be faster and cheaper. But now the first pre-fab building won’t be up before 2015, a year behind schedule, according to Forest City chief executive MaryAnne Gilmartin. The problem? It turns out that there were some kinks at the factory where they’re trying to assemble the world’s largest prefabricated residential building. Who could have imagined that?
So, that building has been pushed back to 2015, instead of 2014. There’s more though, because there’s always more. The developer that Forest City sold a majority of the development to, Greenland Holding Group, wants to get buildings up before people realize Brooklyn’s prices are so fucking insane that they don’t want to live here. So, they’ll be doing three other buildings with traditional construction methods, which is supposed to take longer than prefabricated buildings. But don’t worry, Greenland promises the whole thing will be done in eight years, which you should definitely take to Vegas and put a lot of money on. Oh and also Mayor Tall’s administration will be talking to Forest City about “the possibility of additional housing subsidies for apartments for poor and working-class families,” so expect a lot more kvetching about how he blew it all up the same way it happened with Domino.
Basically, we hope you like the stadium, because it’s probably the only thing you’ll ever see.