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Childs Anchors Atlantic Yards?

Childs Anchors Atlantic Yards?

The Brooklyn Paper bumped into David Childs last week, during the opening of his SOM colleague Roger Duffy’s new Toren condo tower, and the BKP is reporting the surprising news that both could possibly be working on some of the 16 residential towers proposed for Bruce Ratner’s nearby Atlantic Yards development.

“First, he brought me in to look at the arena design, which I think is very good now,” Childs said, referring to the current design collaboration between Ellerbe Becket and SHoP Architects. “And then we talked about working together on the residential buildings,” added Childs.

A Ratner spokesperson acknowledged Childs’ discussions with Ratner to the Paper but called speculation on their future together “premature.” While critics still question whether those towers will ever get off the ground, the project, or at least the arena, is closer than ever to reality. A groundbreaking is scheduled for tomorrow, following a court ruling last Monday affirming the state’s right to seize land from the project’s remaining holdouts, most notably Dan Goldstein of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn and Freddie’s bar. The groundbreaking is to be attended by the likes of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Borough President Marty Markowitz—both long-time supporters of the project—as well as Governor David Paterson and rapper and Nets-part-owner Jay-Z. Goldstein and Freddie’s are holding a counter-groundbreaking, where they say they will bury the soul of Brooklyn, along with 3-foot-tall bobbleheads of the aforementioned public figures. Whether this will finally manage to stop the contentious project remains to be seen, but it’s bound to make for good street theater.

UPDATE 3/11: The Brooklyn Paper is also reporting that the final lawsuit pending against the project, over the state’s revisions to the scope of the project, came down in Ratner’s favor yesterday. And so the fait accompli has been accomplished.


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