Atlantic Yards Hastily Rebranded "Pacific Park" By Housing Developer

Images via COOKFOX and Reading RainbowGreenland Forest City Partners announced on Monday that they would be “rebranding” the Atlantic Yards as part of their mandatory affordable housing project. The project, which had been delayed for years, saw new life recently when the developers realized the city would actually start fining them if they didn’t live up to their end of the bargain.

The eponymous park will be designed by the same architecture firm that did Heritage Park on the site of Old Yankee Stadium. Good to see they hired old pros at prettying up gentrified neighborhoods. Paths will lead through the park and between two residential towers on either side: 535 Carlton Ave, an 18-story, all affordable housing building and 550 Vanderbilt Ave, an all-condominium, market-rate building. Renderings of the “poor people building,” included token white folk to be racially sensitive. After all, it’s 2014 and white people can be poor too. A partner at COOKFOX, called the two buildings “the urban bookends.” Wait. Does this sound like the projects to anyone else?

The architects were chosen “for Brooklyn sensibility that could combine park space, interesting materials, scale and an appreciation of nature within an urban environment,” said Greenland Forest President, MaryAnne Gilmartin. They were not at all chosen for being able to turn something around fast enough to meet the city’s deadline. Speaking of which, construction is scheduled to begin on this December.

CURBED VIA DNAINFO