Clockwise from top left: An early model showing buildings along Vanderbilt Avenue designed by Frank Gehry; A massing diagram of buildings along Vanderbilt Avenue; The approved site plan indicating four buildings to be built at Vanderbilt Av and Dean St. (Courtesy Forest City Ratner; Courtesy MAS/Jonathan Barkey; Courtesy Forest City Ratner)

While construction has just begun on the first residential tower at Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, the developer may be plotting the next construction site. SHoP Architects designed three towers clustered around the Barclays Center arena, but the Atlantic Yards Report blog reported in late March, citing documents from Forest City, that the developer is including a parcel at the southeastern corner of the site at Vanderbilt Avenue and Dean Street in its first phase construction plans. No design exists for the four buildings planned there, but an early site model by Frank Gehry and a massing diagram from the Municipal Art Society based on the approved Gehry site plan show the buildings will not be the tallest in the project.

Critics like AYR-blogger Norman Oder are upset that development atop the railyards at the center and north of the site aren’t being prioritized and have accused Forest City of delaying real investment in the area. The southeast parcel indicated above is the largest remaining terra-firma site at Atlantic Yards and previously was to be among the last developed.