State Agency Approves Ballparks
The Yankees and the Mets moved a step closer to building their new stadiums yesterday when the board of directors of the Empire State Development Corporation approved infrastructure plans for the projects. The state proposed to contribute $74.7 million to each project, though both await the agency's final approval.
The total cost of the new 51,800-seat Yankee Stadium is estimated at $1.2 billion. The Yankees will pay about $800 million. The total cost of the new Shea Stadium, which will have 42,500 seats, is estimated at $600 million, of which the Mets will pay $444.4 million. Each team will finance their costs with tax-exempt and taxable bonds issued by the city's Industrial Development Agency.
The city will contribute $133.9 million to the Yankees' ballpark and $89.7 million to the Mets', according to the plans approved yesterday.
After a public hearing, to take place within 60 days, the agency's board will vote again. If the plans get sufficient votes, they must then be approved by the state Public Authorities Control Board.
The new Yankee Stadium has been widely criticized, as it will displace 22 acres of Macomb's Dam and John Mullaly parks - about half of the parkland. The plan calls for the development of 22.4 acres of new parkland on several sites in the community.
"It is devastating for the community at large to have public parkland taken away for private enterprise," the campaign manager for the advocacy group Save Our Parks, Joyce Hogi, said. "Especially in the poorest congressional district in the country."
Ms. Hogi said the new parkland would not be a replacement: "Right now we have a contiguous park," she said, with 300 fully mature oak trees that will be replaced with two- to three-inch saplings.
The Yankees have refused to consider alternatives to the plan, the president of the nonprofit NYC Park Advocates, Geoffrey Croft, said in a statement, because say they would make less money during construction.
"This is the only site available for a new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx," the president of the Yankees, Randy Levine told The New York Sun. "The New York State Legislature and the City Council last year overwhelmingly approved the parkland as the site for the new stadium." He added that the Yankees insisted the parkland be replaced.
Both ballparks have also been criticized as a waste of taxpayer money and an economic drain on the city.
A research analyst for the nonprofit Good Jobs New York, Daniel Steinberg, said the projected economic returns to the city and state from the new Yankee Stadium were inflated because they were based on a comparison to outdated attendance figures. The projected tax revenues were even higher in the plan approved yesterday.
"It is unlikely this will qualify as an investment in that its benefits do not outweigh its costs," he said.
The co-author of "Field of Schemes," Neil deMause, a critic of government supported stadiums, told the Sun that after various tax breaks and subsidies, the Mets may not pay anything at all for their stadium.
Mr. Levine said the Yankees are financing the entire stadium, the largest investment ever in the Bronx.
A spokesman for the Mets said the team would not have a statement until its public announcement sometime in the next few weeks.
The Empire State Development Corporation's directors also gave final approval to the Brooklyn Bridge Park's development plan. Construction of the park, which will stretch along about 1.3 miles of the Brooklyn waterfront, is slated to begin next year. Some have criticized that project because it calls for private housing to be built in the 85-acre park, the revenues of which will finance the park's upkeep.
