Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards project is in such financial upheaval that the developer is now trying to cut back on much-needed transit improvements, which he promised in exchange for approval for the controversial $4 billion project, The Post has learned.
Sources said Bruce Ratner is in talks with the cash-strapped Metropolitan Transportation Authority about cutting costs on a revamp and move of the Long Island Rail Road’s Vanderbilt Rail Yard, which he agreed to purchase three years ago for $100 million.
The news has Atlantic Yards opponents seething because Ratner wasn’t the highest bidder for the 8.3-acre rail yard site, but the MTA agreed to sell it to the developer anyway, allowing him to move forward with his now crumbling 22-acre plan to build an NBA arena and 16 office and residential towers in Prospect Heights.
The arena, which earlier this month Ratner also said he is trying to cut costs on, is to be built over the existing rail yard at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues.
Ratner’s $100 million bid to the MTA was $50 million lower than a rival proposal by Extell Development. An agency appraisal found the rail yard worth $214.5 million.
Ratner won out after convincing the MTA his plan was actually worth $445 million, by claiming it included $345 million in transit enhancements.
Those were to include construction of a $182 million replacement rail yard, an environmental cleanup, and other improvements around the bustling Atlantic Avenue transit hub.
In light of the news that Ratner is trying to cut costs, Daniel Goldstein, spokesman for the anti-Atlantic Yards group Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, called on the MTA to put the project back out for bids.
“Either [Ratner’s company] wildly inflated the cost of constructing a new rail yard to win their bid despite their lowball offer, or they’re not building the state-of-the-art yard they had agreed to build,” he said.
The MTA declined to discuss the talks. Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco said the developer is “committed to doing” the rail-yard work, but he declined to discuss the effect of shaving costs on the finished product.
Ratner, meanwhile, has yet to pay the MTA the $100 million for the site, and he’s in talks about spreading out the payments, sources said.
Earlier this month, Ratner confirmed he’s looking to shave hundreds of millions from the planned $950 million, glass-and-steel arena for his New Jersey Nets designed by star architect Frank Gehry.
Borough President Marty Markowitz followed that announcement with a call for a considerable downscale “brownstone” facade for the arena.