Developer Bruce C. Ratner Digs Into Difficult Deals to Alter the Urban Landscape

Family First

For engineer-lawyer Linda Chiarelli, FCRC's deputy director of construction and former outside counsel, her colleagues are more than friends. "It is my family here," she says.

Chiarelli also likes the way FCRC values women. "The advancement of MaryAnne is an inspiration for young women because it shows what you can accomplish with great strength and compassion," says Chiarelli, who has been on the FCRC staff for 15 years.

Chiarelli, who worked a three-day week when she joined the companybecause her children were young, also says family comes first at FCRC.

Foes of Atlantic Yards have a drastically different take on Ratner. Having failed through litigation to stop the project, they are now concerned that construction is not happening fast enough.

"They have not fulfilled their promises and are not on track to do so," says Daniel Goldstein, co-founder of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB). "Plenty of people have enjoyed events [at the arena], but smaller business are being driven out because landlords have jacked up rents," says Goldstein, the last holdout of the 118 households and 18 businesses relocated for the project.

FCRC paid Goldstein $3 million so he would not fight his eviction or remain a spokesman for DDDB. "I will grant, in my personal opinion, [Barclays] could have looked worse," he says.

Thanks to DDDB efforts, a judge ordered the Empire State Development Corp., which oversees the project, to do a supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) on FCRC's longer Atlantic Yards build-out period, approved by ESDC after the recession hit. A judge then ordered FCRC to pay DDDB's lawyer fees for the decision. ESDC won't give a date for the SEIS release.

Currently, FCRC is trying to speed the pace of the project by selling 70% of its stake to the Shanghai-based Greenland Group. The companies are seeking necessary approvals for the transaction.

Ratner says he wasn't surprised there was opposition to the Atlantic Yards plan, but he didn't expect the settlements to take so long. The lawsuits delayed construction long enough for the bottom to fall out of the market. To salvage the venture, FCRC disengaged Frank Gehry as the architect, scaled back the arena and slowed the build-out of the village.

It was Ratner's darkest hour on the Atlantic Yards project. But, he says, with his usual resolve, "Never once did we consider giving up."

Nadine M. Post, ENR's former editor-at-large for buildings, is an award-winning journalist with 45 years of experience covering trends, issues, innovations, controversies and challenging projects. Post has written about many industry giants, including 10 ENR Award of Excellence winners. And she has covered disasters, failures and attacks, including the 1993 bombing and the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center. Project stories include the redevelopment of the World Trade Center; the 828-meter-tall Burj Khalifa; Los Angeles’ Disney Concert Hall; and Seattle's Bullitt Center and Rainier Square Tower. In 1985, Post wrote McGraw-Hill's book Restoring the Statue of Liberty (1986) for the restoration’s architects—Richard S. Hayden and Thierry W. Despont.