Fuming Mayor Scores Albany Over Stadium

Reeling from the apparent demise of the West Side stadium plan, a fuming Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday that legislative leaders in Albany had not only killed the Olympic stadium and imperiled the city's plans for spurring development on the far West Side of Manhattan, they had also failed America and drawn a bold question mark over economic development in all of New York City.

"One of the problems here is that we have let down America," he said. "The U.S.O.C. selected us, New York, to represent the country. It was a very heated competition. Other American cities wanted to have the privilege of competing at the world level. New York won because people had confidence that New York would be able to do things, and it turned out that, unfortunately, we are not able to do things." The U.S.O.C. is the United States Olympic Committee.

With that same inability to get things done and that lack of a "can-do attitude," Mr. Bloomberg said, the city never would have built Carnegie Hall, the airports, the Triborough Bridge, or Central Park, among other landmarks.

Now, he said, the New York Sports and Convention Center, which was supposed to serve as the anchor and "catalyst" for a sweeping redevelopment of the far West Side of Manhattan, is off the table, putting plans for the entire neighborhood in doubt.

Although the City Council has already approved new zoning for the far West Side, making it possible to build up to 24 million square feet of office space, the mayor said removing the Sports and Convention Center from the equation might slow construction.

"The City Council voted a zoning change on the far West Side. They want development there. I happen to agree with that. I think that we should have development throughout all parts of this city, and I'm going to have to find some other ways to incentivize people to go to the far West Side," Mr. Bloomberg said. "I really thought that the stadium would have done that. Failing that, it is going to be more difficult."

That, he said, means finding a new "catalyst," a tough assignment. He also said it could mean reworking the system of payments in lieu of taxes, or PILOTs, which the administration envisioned to finance the broader project, or else creating some other sort of spur to construction.

The city had planned to pay for the westward extension of the No.7 subway line with PILOT payments to the Hudson Yards Infrastructure Corporation. Now there might not be enough money, and the subway extension might not happen on the quick timetable the city had projected.

As for the rail yards, on top of which the stadium was to be built, there are no current plans.

The MTA could issue another request for development proposals, or a private developer could champion a plan, but that would mean starting from scratch: planning, zoning, and financing.

That did not happen for decades before the New York Jets came along and negotiated with the Bloomberg administration to develop the site. In recent years, though, the transit agency has felt increased fiscal pressure and has taken a more aggressive stance toward liquidating non-transit assets, such as the development rights above the rail yards.

The only part of the overall West Side plan that is moving forward as planned is apparently the expansion of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, which, according to the center's director of public affairs, Mike Eisgrau, is in the planning stages but still progressing.

Mr. Bloomberg said the turmoil on the West Side might drive away developers.

"One of the great dangers is that developers are going to get disheartened and say, I can't build anything in New York City because the politics always get in the way - what happens someplace else is going to influence my project and my project can't stand on its own," he said. "Developers can't really deal with that."

Economic-development professionals were divided on whether Monday's vote of the Public Authorities Control Board would have a chilling effect on real-estate development in New York City.

"In the immediate future, it seems to me that the redevelopment of the West Side has been significantly set back, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's not going to happen," the president of the Partnership for New York City, Kathryn Wylde, said.

She agreed with the mayor that in general, the stadium saga might retard development in the city.

"I think that the current climate has raised the political risk and cost of development in New York City, and that may have a chilling effect on development," she said.

Ms. Wylde said that "chilling effect" could, ironically, be particularly intense downtown.

Even though the state Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, said he blocked the West Side stadium project because it would conflict with the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan, Ms. Wylde said redevelopment downtown could now be even slower, because it's even more complicated, and more emotionally charged, than on the West Side.

The president of the New York Building Congress, Richard Anderson, also predicted that rejecting the West Side stadium could end up hurting Lower Manhattan.

"Yesterday's action could actually hurt Lower Manhattan," Mr. Anderson said. "Whatever leverage Speaker Silver had to help Lower Manhattan is now removed. I think the mayor is committed to Lower Manhattan, but he doesn't have to respond to Speaker Silver when Speaker Silver has nothing to offer."

Mr. Anderson said he had expected the No. 7 extension and the Sports and Convention Center to "jump-start" far West Side development. Now, he said, "the development timetable for the Hudson Yards area is being extended, perhaps as long as decades." He said a "depressing litany of negativism coming out of Albany," including the demise of the stadium, could scare off developers.

The director of the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University, Elliot Sander, was more upbeat. While the No. 7 project would proceed with less urgency, that might not be a bad thing, and overall, development in the city would not stop because of what happened this week, he said. He predicted that as long as the city keeps improving its transportation system, economic development will continue.

A spokesman for the Regional Plan Association, Jeremy Soffin, also predicted a No.7 slowdown, but he said that, depending on market demand, real estate development could proceed, and probably will proceed, on the far West Side.

Late yesterday, the mayor's communications director, Edward Skyler, said it had not yet been decided whether the United States Olympic Committee would withdraw New York's candidacy before the International Olympic Committee's July 6 vote on which of five cities will be selected as host of the 2012 Summer Games.