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Shopping Centers Today -> March 2004
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FOREST CITY TO BUILD IN N.Y., D.C.
BY IAN RITTER
Unveiling a busy construction schedule, Forest City Enterprises has announced plans to build four major urban projects around the country — two in the New York City area and one each in Washington, D.C., and the Denver area — on the heels of other developments it already has in the works.
The Cleveland-based developer started off the year detailing plans for Brooklyn (N.Y.) Atlantic Yards, a $2.5 billion project with 300,000 square feet of retail, 2.1 million square feet of offices and 4.4 million square feet of residential units. At the center of the development would be an arena, designed by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry, to showcase the New Jersey Nets basketball team. (Bruce Ratner, head of Forest City Ratner, the company’s New York City arm, made the winning bid for the team and says he intends to move them to Brooklyn.)
Forest City has put together a 10-year construction plan for Atlantic Yards, but says it expects to complete the stadium in time for the 2007 basketball season. The project, which is subject to city and state approval, is said to have substantial community support — and some opposition. Some say Atlantic Yards will be a boon to the area, others have voiced concerns about crowding, traffic and parking problems.
Just north of New York City, Forest City says it will build Ridge Hill Village Center, a 1.2 million-square-foot mixed-use project in Yonkers, N.Y. The firm expects to start construction on that by the spring of 2005.
In Washington, D.C., Forest City has reached a preliminary agreement with the U.S. General Services Administration to build Southeast Federal Center, an $800 million complex that is to contain 214,000 square feet of retail, 2,700 houses and apartments, and 1.8 million square feet of offices. The center would go up on a 42-acre site on the Anacostia River’s west bank. The GSA is reviewing Forest City’s proposal.
Further west, Forest City has formed a partnership with the city of Westminster, Colo., to build a 1.2 million-square-foot mixed-use project there. The $150 million, still-unnamed development will go up along Interstate 25, about 10 miles north of Denver, and is to include 900,000 square feet of open-air fashion retail. The retail’s first phase is scheduled to open in the fall of 2005 with an AMC theater. The project’s nonretail component — apartments, town houses and offices — will open the following year.
In Denver itself, Forest City is putting up a mixed-use project on the site of the former Stapleton Airport.
Meanwhile, in California the firm is working on mixed-use projects in Rancho Cucamonga and Simi Valley.
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