Barclays Center developer Bruce Ratner canceled a a real-estate symposium at the center next week because tenant groups planned to protest his appearance, it was reported Friday.
Ratner, who won a bruising fight to build Barclays Center, was supposed to be the keynote speaker at the Tuesday symposium of LandlordsNY, a group primarily composed of property owners and managers.
But in an e-mail earlier this week, LandlordsNY notified others scheduled to speak that “one or two tenant groups” planned to protest outside the center and that Barclays was aborting the symposium because of concern about “the negative press it will bring them and Mr. Ratner,” according to The Real Deal.com.
A spokesman for Ratner declined to comment.
About 200 people, from groups such as the Met Council on Housing and the Fifth Avenue Committee, reportedly planned to attend the protest.
“I’m actually surprised that they found out and that they see it as a threat,” Jackie Del Valle, of the Fifth Avenue Committee, told The Real Deal.