The News Interview: Bruce Ratner

 

Developer Brucer Ratner, President of Forest City Ratner Companies, is principal owner of the New Jersey Nets, which he plans to relocate to Brooklyn. Ratner met with the Editorial Board.

QUESTION: While the Jets were waging a high-profile fight to win approval for a stadium on the West Side of Manhattan, you quietly signed a memorandum of understanding with three government agencies to build a basketball arena for the Nets in downtown Brooklyn with much less controversy. How did that happen?

ANSWER: Our project is a little different from the West Side because 80% of it is housing. We're planning 4,500 units of middle-income, low-income and market-rate housing on a piece of land that for a long time has been almost undevelopable.

What gets built first, the arena or the housing?

Within two years of the time that we start the arena, some of the housing will be ready.

When will all this happen?

Our lease in the New Jersey Meadowlands is up in 2007-2008. There's a small chance we can move by then, but it will more likely happen in 2008 or 2009. It takes two years to actually build the arena, and another year to go through government approvals.

If the Bloomberg administration gets voted out this fall, does your memorandum of understanding vanish?

No. The memo is nonbinding, but in general, administrations tend to honor agreements of the prior administration.

Opponents of your plan complain that you are using the threat of eminent domain - forced acquisition of property by government - to make the project work.

We've already privately acquired a very substantial portion of the site, and given everybody on the site the opportunity either to relocate or make a fair amount of money above what they originally paid. Most people have taken that option, so we don't have to depend to any great extent on eminent domain.

Are you still hoping to build office towers on the site as well?

We're seriously considering making some of the proposed office space residential. The residential market is strong, and we have a tremendous need for housing in the city.

How does the arena project fit into the overall development of the borough?

All the outer boroughs live in the shadow of Manhattan, but Brooklyn has the best chance of escaping that because we have our own brand. Bringing a team to Brooklyn will enhance that brand and give people civic pride, but we have to keep pushing and promoting. Look, I'm not from Brooklyn, I'm from Ohio - but I chose Brooklyn. One of the biggest compliments I was ever paid came when Howard Golden, the former borough president, introduced me to an audience as born and raised in Brooklyn.