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Atlantic Yards to be rebranded as Pacific Park Brooklyn

August 5, 2014 Heather Chin

Rendering courtesy of COOKFOX.

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Development of the Atlantic Yards affordable housing project is moving forward with the announcement of a name change to Pacific Park Brooklyn.

The rebranding effort is part of developer Greenland Forest City Partners effort to prove to city officials and community advocates that they are turning over a new leaf in terms of efficiency and commitment to fulfilling their promise of building affordable housing in exchange for the land to build the nearly two-year-old Barclays Center.

Pacific Park will also be the name of a new eight-acre public park, to be designed by Thomas Balsley Associates, that will be bordered by Atlantic Avenue and Dean Street, and Carlton and Vanderbilt Avenues.

The park is intended as the public centerpiece, of sorts, of the four residential tower communities at 461 Dean Street, 535 Carlton Avenue, 550 Vanderbilt Avenue and 30 Sixth Avenue.

While construction 461 Dean is still underway; its architects, SHoP Architects, will also design 30 Sixth Avenue, which is slated to be the last to break groundin June, 2015. The new building will be 100 percent affordable rental with around 300 units on the arena block.

Meanwhile, 535 Carltonan 18-story building with 298 low-to-middle-income units spread within 285,000 square feetand 550 Vanderbilta market-rate, 275-unit, 330,000-square-foot condominium towerwill be designed by COOKFOX, a firm that is also involved in Downtown Brooklyns City Point project on Flatbush Avenue.

535 Carlton is scheduled to break ground this December, 2014, and 550 Vanderbilt will follow in early 2015.

Like SHoPs work on the arena block, COOKFOX appreciates the need to contextualize these buildings to create a great sense of place while also complementing the neighborhoods that they will join, said MaryAnne Gilmartin, president of Greenland Forest City Partners.

We were looking for Brooklyn sensibility that could combine park space, interesting materials, scale and an appreciation of nature within an urban environment, Gilmartin added. The early design work does that wonderfully.

In July, Greenland Forest City announced their intention to complete the affordable housing portion of the project by May, 2025a full decade ahead of scheduledespite their current 18-month delay.

The citys penalty for not meeting that deadline is fines of up to $5 million.