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• NY REAL ESTATE COMMERCIAL
• JANUARY 23, 2012

Brooklyn Arena Criticized on Hiring

By HEATHER HADDON

Nick Brandreth for the Wall Street Journal

Almost two years after it broke ground, development of the Barclays Center arena, shown here in April 2011, has created fewer jobs than developer Bruce Ratner had promised the area, according to elected officials.

As the Barclays Center arena slowly progresses in Brooklyn, elected officials are calling for the developers to make good on the affordable housing units and thousands of jobs promised to accompany the development.
Nearly two years after it broke ground, the development has created less than a thousand jobs, fewer than the 1,500 slots a year developer Bruce Ratner had promised to bring to the area, elected officials said Sunday.
"The project was presented as a field of dreams but has turned into a cemetery of broken promises," said Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, who was joined by fellow Brooklyn Democrats Sen. Eric Adams and Assemblyman Karin Camra during a news conference on Sunday.
About 100 of the jobs created have gone to workers from the five Brooklyn neighborhoods surrounding the $5 billion sports arena and housing complex, but they have mostly been retail positions, not well-paying ones in construction, Mr. Jeffries said.
In 2005, developer Forest City Ratner signed a Community Benefits Agreement to devote a certain percentage of the 15,000 total jobs created by the development of the new Nets home to minorities and local residents. Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development, a local group, was funded by the developers to train residents to qualify for the jobs. Developers initially said that 10,000 of the jobs would be permanent.
But the project's scope has changed considerably since it was approved in 2006. An office tower with more than 1 million square feet of space was scaled back, and the timeline for the entire project was extended from 10 to 25 years. Developers are now looking to construct the first 300-unit housing tower with modular units, which require less manpower to construct.
There were 645 construction workers on the job as of November, according to a December report by Merritt & Harris to the project's bond holders.
In November, seven construction workers sued Mr. Ratner for allegedly failing to deliver construction jobs and running a training program that failed to lead to union employment.
Joe DePlasco, a spokesman for the developers, said that litigation and the economy have "impacted" the number of jobs created. "Over 20% of all contract dollars to date have gone to [minority] firms, the highest percentage in the city," he said in a statement.
Mr. Jeffries is reintroducing a bill to require the state Empire State Development Corp. to establish an independent board to better negotiate with the developers and advance community interests. The bill has been reintroduced several times and died in committee in the Assembly last year.
Austin Shafran, an Empire State spokesman, said the state agency was working with the developers to ensure that promised community benefits were met, including "affordable housing and thousands of jobs."
"ESD is confident that the developer is working aggressively to break ground on the first residential tower and complete the full build out of the project," Mr. Shafran said in a statement.