Bronx close to scoring $400M soccer stadium for NYCFC

To defend Levine a little bit, nobody would have predicted how personally Wilpon would take it when his deal for a soccer team in Queens fell apart. I've read the rumors on what the Mets wanted from NYCFC to use their parking lot (all the revenues plus a seven-figure fee for the privilege, even though they don't technically own the lot) and my eyeballs just popped out. It's amazing how thoroughly they managed to flip from being a driving force behind a stadium deal to hosting the opposition for it without ever getting called out on it. But I figure it makes a huge difference whether the 800lb gorilla in your borough is pushing for your project rather than against it, as well as whether you're proposing to use a park or a parking lot. The money that's being asked for looks unseemly, but those considerations may wind up outweighing that, we'll see.

But "other infrastructure" is basically the parking lot for the PATH station, right? That's only tangentially related to the stadium in my book, given it's about a mile away, and not where they would expect to make the revenue back.

 

bobby convey?

 

Anyone who chooses to know knows I have a built-in RBNY bias. Not a well-wisher of this entire project including the stadium. I've probably been a little harsh on Levine but only a little. He has a reputation in this town beginning with his stint as Deputy Mayor under Giuliani back in the '90s.

I've been researching this Martin Edelman guy that BlueIntent enlightened us about. Big time NYC based real-estate lawyer for Mansour. Appears to be a Democrat with contributions to a variety of Democratic candidates. One of the founders of the Jackie Robinson Foundation (black Republican, lol). If this guy is not right next to Levine at the table Mansour would be well advised to get him there immediately. In fact if it wouldn't cause a rift with his junior partner the play is likely to put Edelman in charge moving forward.

Out-of-towners need to remember that agreement in principle on the financing just starts the process here. The community piece is always important and Levine can be a little harsh (kinder...gentler) at times. The safest position in this city is to be against these projects even with the acknowledged benefits of this one.

The Barclays Center was one of the great "achievements" in sporting history here, many still can't believe it happened (8 years later). More typical is MSG where the Dolan's put a billion dollars into a complete interior rebuild only to have the city recently tell them they have to move in 10 years. The Wilpons' history in Queens only reinforces the fact that even a seeming no-brainer can get derailed/delayed as competing big money interests face-off before the community even weighs in.

http://www.rudyveritas.com/rudy_veritas/2009/01/trusting-randy-levine.html

 

This doesn't change your point, but the distance from RBA to the PATH station and the parking garage is a lot less than 1 mile. It's more like 1500 feet.

 

Martin Edelman is very much an insider in all things NYCFC and MCFC, he have been involved from the start in this project, the main "trail" if you are interested is found with Mubadala Developments.

But I will not bore everyone with lists of cross ownerships and over-lapping boards of directors, just rest assured that the guys behind NYCFC are excellent executives..But then sports doesn´t really conform to business standards which is why they prefer to keep in the background.

 

I meant to edit that after looking it up. But yeah, it's not on site, it's really not a "stadium parking lot" at all. The stadium isn't projected to be even the main use of it.

 

Be Our Guest: The Yankees' deal for a soccer stadium would use taxpayer money and pave over parkland
New York Daily News ‎

 

Not that I know about. I did a Ctrl-F on "park" to try and figure out in the actual article what the hell she was talking about in the headline. Closest I got was this:

Really?



I'll be damned if I can see the parkland on top of the parking garage that this stadium would supposedly destroy. I see a lot of parking with no parkland on top of it. . .

 

so glad I didn't click that link... see the track & field over at the top? theres a garage used for Yankee stadium under there. I think the moron that wrote the article mistook THAT space to be the area where the new stadium is being built instead of the triangular garage where its ACTUALLY built which is not parkland.

the area immediately north of it where the old YS was is however, but by all accounts thats not the space being taken so either this is sensationalist headlining meant to add clicks or poor researching on the part of the daily news.

 

The article makes 3 main points.

The first that the YS parking deal was a total clusterfu*k (which it totally was) and that "buying off" the mistake by selling the land for redevelopment is an additional insult to the community.

I empathize with this point. There is very little parkland in this area, and putting further tax dollars towards the heritage of the destruction of such parkland would leave a bad taste in my mouth.

And yet, the previous mistake has already been made. There is no conceivable way that the parking garages will ever be reconverted to parkland, and the status quo is a disaster for all parties(except the Yankees, they get off scot free). So overall it's a net positive.

The second point is that the stadium will build on top of the track field.
Unless they know something we have not heard anywhere else, this is false, and unjustly demonizes the project.

Third is that the project will demolish the locally owned 90+ year old GAL Manufacturing plant, which only recently had a large solar installation installed on the roof.

Too early to tell if this is problematic or not. Depends where they go. I'll reserve judgment, but I have to imagine they are savvy enough to ask for a reasonable payment and will be in great shape going forward.

Overall, the article provides a few reasonable objections but adds in falsehoods and non-issues to create pretty blatant hit piece on the project.

 

Unfortunately it's working. I mean this is Bloomberg's baby and he's out of office in less than a day. And thus far it remains stalled.

 

Flushing Corona Park was Bloomberg's baby. The moment that fell through, there was already almost nothing Bloomberg could do.

 

Stalled is the wrong word I think. The initial agreement asks for indirect public support and the speculation is that the new administration is balking.

That makes total sense and I see no reason why further negotiations can't lead to a successful plan.

 

In fact, if it were actually stalled, you wouldn't be seeing op-eds opposing it.

 

As I mentioned earlier, It´s hardly necessary for NYCFC to get any tax-breaks as the proposed stadium would cost less than half of what Sheikh Mansour paid for his new Yacht last year.. What is necessary is to get permission to build the stadium in the first place!
I can imagine a scenario where De Blasio tells the media that if NYCFC want a stadium they pay for it themselves, and NYCFC answers..OK, when can we start?

 

Almost all US sports team owners in the big 3 sports can afford to build a new stadium with their own money. They rarely do.

 

But that´s just blackmail, NYCFC have no intention of playing anywhere else so we can hardly play that card

 

Exactly. The stadium issue is yet another illustration of why NYC is just a completely different animal than anywhere else, and why, on some level, the mere existence of NYCFC challenges so many of the league's prevailing standards of how they go about doing business.

Garber, et al, have created a team and made it clear that a stadium in the Five Boroughs is the only acceptable option. They have no leverage here. Combine that with the unimaginable wealth of the owner, and a brand new mayor who is already something of a liberal icon, your post previous to this sounds like a more-likely-than-not scenario.

 

My impression is that the current proposal was more or less masterminded by Howard Wolfson and Randy Levine to A) Give De Blasio an opportunity to show his "anti-bigmoney" credentials
B) Make it harder for him to actually say no to a stadium, which is a very real threat

It´s so awkward if you state that "You pay for it yourself" and then refuse them permission to do so..

 

The situation here is that NYCFC appears to want to be compensated for the fact that they're bailing the parking lot out.

 

Last word is that with De Blasio in office informal talks on the subject is about to start, as for new brooms etc everyone have noticed that De Blasio did keep Kyle Kimball as head of EDC which indicates that things will pretty much be business as usual in NYC.

 

Gonzalez: Yankees soccer stadium deal a $200M sheikdown
New York Daily News

 

obscene that with 2 multi-millionaire owners like the yankees and the sheikh they still deem it somehow necessary to ask for public subsidies. The whole project should be privately financed.