Bloomberg Shifts Focus to Projects in All Boroughs, Taking the Spotlight Off West Side Stadium Plan

By DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, Staff Reporter of the Sun | March 11, 2005

Mayor Bloomberg, taking the spotlight off his plan for a West Side stadium yesterday, focused instead on the development projects he has helped launch across all five boroughs.

"From day one right up to today, our administration has had a five-borough economic development strategy," Mr. Bloomberg told the Real Estate Board of New York in Midtown.

"Some of my critics say I am 'Manhattan-centric,' but nothing could be further from the truth," he told the group. "... Our strategy for making New York more economically diverse and more business-friendly also involves a broad array of economic development projects, and $2 billion in investments in all five boroughs."

The politicians who want to challenge Mr. Bloomberg in the race for City Hall have been trying, with some success, to paint him as a billionaire mayor who is out of touch with the needs and concerns of outer-borough voters. A recent poll of New York City voters found that a random sample of New York City voters, by a 52%-41% ratio, agreed with the statement that Mr. Bloomberg doesn't care about their needs and problems. The mayor's leading Democratic challenger, Fernando Ferrer, rated better in the poll, conducted by Quinnipiac University. By 62% to 16%, voters who were interviewed said Mr. Ferrer understood their problems. The sentiment partly explains the poll's finding that if the election were held now, Mr. Ferrer would win. The poll found that he led the mayor by 47% to 39%.

"If the mayoral election comes down to caring, then Fernando Ferrer has a good head start," the director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, Maurice Carroll, said.

Accentuating progress in the outer boroughs yesterday, the mayor said, for example, that in the past four years, the greatest increases in residential property values have taken place, in order by borough, at Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens (where they have appreciated by 60%), the Bronx, and, finally, Manhattan.

New construction permits are up 20% since 2000, he continued. In each of the past two years, he said, the city has set new records for permits issued in all five boroughs.

"In fact, I challenge any of them to name an administration in this city's history that has made the kind of commitment to safety, schools, improving the quality of life, and economic development outside Manhattan that ours has," he told the real-estate audience.