More than $20B in developments dead or at risk of never seeing light of day

By JONATHAN LEMIRE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Monday, March 31st 2008, 4:00 AM

The boom is going bust.

More than $20 billion worth of high-profile developments across the city - many designed by world-renowned architects and touted by top officials - are dead or at risk of never getting off the drawing board.

The crumbling economy has forced developers to scale back their grand visions and has endangered projects that range from architectural marvels like Frank Gehry's Atlantic Yards towers in Brooklyn to crucial pieces of thecity's infrastructure, like Manhattan's Moynihan rail hub in midtown.

"It really was an amazing run for cities and particularly for New York," said Elliott Sclar, an urban planning professor at Columbia University. "But it appears that itmay be over now.

"The obvious fear now is that these projects won't materialize and the revenues the city expected to get from them won't materialize, either."

With the economy slowing and fears of a recession growing, the future of a slew of high-profile projects has dramatically shifted in recent weeks.

The largest - and perhaps most ambitious - of the developments is the revitalization of the area around Penn Station on Manhattan's West Side.

The $14 billion project centers on the conversion of the Farley Post Office into a soaring train station and new home of Madison Square Garden.

The gigantic project, which was to feature 7 million square feet of office space along W. 33rd St., long has been slowed by political squabbles. It may have been dealt a fatal blow last week when the Garden's owners announced they would renovate the 40-year-old arena rather than move across Eighth Ave.

"The arena is a dump and it would be disingenuous of me or any other architect to suggest that renovating it would be the answer," said Rick Bell, head of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Moynihan Station is designed to feature a glass wall separating the train station from the arena. Office towers would rise on the current site of the Garden.

Although several urban planners believe Garden owners are threatening to stay put only as a bargaining maneuver, others believe the Moynihan plan has a better chance of being salvaged if the new arena is excluded.

"Moynihan Station is absolutely necessary, and it would be a travesty if it is forestalled," Bell said. "People need to take off their Knick caps and put on their thinking caps."

A basketball arena for the Nets remains the centerpiece of Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards project, which has been delayed because of skyrocketing costs and legal fights. Developer Bruce Ratner recently conceded that several of Gehry's dynamic towers, including the signature "Miss Brooklyn" building, would be delayed.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/03 ... _at-2.html