As the Atlantic Yards megaproject comes under increased scrutiny for failing to deliver a single unit of housing one decade in, there's more bad news for developer Forest City Ratner: the completion date for the first residential tower, B2, has been moved to late 2015, instead of this year, according to a State of the Megaproject article in the Times. To make matters even more embarrassing for the developer, the speed at which the tower was supposed to be completed was a focal point of its design — Forest City had angered the unions by decided to build B2 using modular construction, but said that the structure would be completed in a mere 18 months, expediting the delivery of affordable housing to the community. Now, almost 18 months later, the tower is only 13 percent completed.
Things have gotten so bad at Atlantic Yards that a few months ago Forest City sold off a 70 percent stake in the project to a Chinese investment group, which immediately (and probably ill-advisedly) announced a plan to complete two towers a year for the next eight years. Now it turns out that the the Chinese company, Greenland Holding Group, will not even be using the (theoretically faster) modular construction to achieve that lofty goal. The next three towers will be built using regular construction, while the fifth tower is still up in the air, according to Forest City's spokesperson. But we can just worry about that one when they're ready to get started, probably sometime in the late 23rd century.
· Slow Start Spurs Shift for Towers Near Arena [NYT]
· Atlantic Yards coverage [Curbed]
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