Press Release

Forest City Selected to Develop $500 Million New East Baltimore Community

For immediate release - December 21, 2004

Cleveland, OH – Forest City Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE:FCEA)(NYSE:FCEB) today announced that Forest City and a team of local developers have been chosen to develop the first phase of an 80-acre mixed-use community adjacent to the Johns Hopkins University medical campus in East Baltimore, Md. The 30-acre first phase of the project is a 10-year, $500 million redevelopment effort.

The Forest City team plans to develop the first phase with up to 1.1 million square feet of life sciences and office space, 850 mixed-income residential units, 41,000 square feet of retail space, parking, and parks and open space. Johns Hopkins Medicine has committed to occupy at least 100,000 square feet of the first 270,000-square-foot life sciences building.

"This is an exciting opportunity for us, and exemplifies our ongoing involvement in public-private partnerships," said Charles A. Ratner, president and chief executive officer of Forest City Enterprises. "Our expertise enables us to bring the worlds of technology and real estate together to provide solutions for organizations involved in advanced research, while working to enhance the communities in which they are located."

The Forest City-New East Baltimore Partnership, LLC was selected by East Baltimore Development, Inc. (EBDI), a nonprofit organization charged with leading and managing the revitalization of East Baltimore.

Forest City's participation in the East Baltimore partnership furthers the Company's commitment to large-scale urban development for the life sciences and university communities. University Park at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is an award-winning mixed-use development adjacent to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Company has also completed a 128,000-square-foot medical research facility at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Corporate Description
Forest City Enterprises, Inc. is a $7.2 billion NYSE-listed real estate company headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. The Company is principally engaged in the ownership, development, acquisition and management of commercial and residential real estate throughout the United States. The Company's portfolio includes interests in retail centers, apartment communities, office buildings and hotels in 19 states and the District of Columbia.

Safe Harbor Language
Statements made in this news release that state the Company or management's intentions, hopes, beliefs, expectations or predictions of the future are forward-looking statements. It is important to note that the Company's actual results could differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, real estate development and investment risks, economic conditions in the Company's target markets, reliance on major tenants, the impact of terrorist acts, the Company's substantial leverage and the ability to service debt, guarantees under the Company's credit facility, changes in interest rates, continued availability of tax-exempt government financing, the sustainability of substantial operations at the subsidiary level, significant geographic concentration, illiquidity of real estate investments, dependence on rental income from real property, conflicts of interest, competition, potential liability from syndicated properties, effects of uninsured loss, environmental liabilities, partnership risks, litigation risks, and other risk factors as disclosed from time to time in the Company's SEC filings, including, but not limited to, the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2004.