Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Proving their worth

With opening day for the city’s two newest baseball stadiums only four months away, the price tag for taxpayers continues to rise.

The Bloomberg administration has issued fresh estimates for utility work, lighting and the cost of replacing the parks and ball fields that once stood where the new stadium for the Yankees is being erected.

The city also plans to issue $341.2 million in additional tax-exempt bonds on behalf of the Yankees and Mets to complete the stadiums, whose combined cost is about $2.2 billion.

The teams are responsible for paying off the bonds, but they pay tens of millions of dollars less in interest because payments to bondholders are exempt from city, state and federal taxes.

The city and the state are also investing more than $660 million in parks, garages and transportation improvements around the stadiums and are providing the teams with an estimated $500 million in tax breaks related to construction materials and other items. The city had planned to issue a public notice of the latest bond offering and a required public hearing on Monday but decided to wait at least a week until it completed a cost-benefit analysis. With public costs mounting, critics of the deals say the city will be hard pressed to demonstrate that the economic benefits of the stadium projects outweigh the cost to taxpayers.


As Stadiums’ Costs Rise, City Agrees to New Bond Offerings

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

The costs keep rising as we see from news today.It will reach into the billions and they still are not done saying "we need more money".Im sure there some hidden enviromental news out there with the mess below Yankee stadium.Must be hell living next to that construction.

Anonymous said...

Will the cost of plastic shopping bags now rise to 7 cents a piece in order to pay for this?

Anonymous said...

all taxes will go up get this mayor and his big money friends out of office and fast

Anonymous said...

Citi Field is not being built by the city, the surrounding infrastructure improvements are. Keep your facts straight.

Anonymous said...

While they have withheld infrastructure improvements from Willets Point for decades. Yeah, we know.

Anonymous said...

"The Yankees have pointed out that their new stadium has generated thousands of construction jobs" - taken out of the attached article.

Isnt that what is important right now?

Anonymous said...

Millions upon millions of dollars for a few thousand jobs. LOL what a joke.

Anonymous said...

Correction: temp jobs.

Anonymous said...

???Citi Field is not being built by the city, the surrounding infrastructure improvements are. Keep your facts straight.
HA

Do you work for bloomberg mister?So Citifield recieves no money from the city and taxpayers??Thats funny.

Anonymous said...

What a shame...all that money to watch a guy whos IQ matches his shoe size hit a skin ball with a stick.
Tickets are going to be $100 an up plus parking

Anonymous said...

Everytime I start to like this blog I start to read some of the commentaries and the maturity and lack of any sort of comprehensive thinking make sick. No wonder everyone in Manhattan and Brooklyn think that Queens is an oasis of idiots.

Anonymous said...

Who the hell cares what Manhattan thinks? They only like us for the cheap real estate.

Anonymous said...

Nice chemtrails!

Anonymous said...

"Millions upon millions of dollars"

Now becoming billions upon billions.

Now to accompany a tennis stadium Queens residents cant afford to attend, they will be blessed with a baseball stadium they cant afford to attend.

We need to pay for it. Like 'Alan' said, how about an increase in the price of plastic shopping bags?

I think it is legit to have bags which carry our eggs, milk and cold cuts be charged a fee so we can fund luxury boxes at City stadiums.

As much as it disgusts, NYC taxpayers desserve it for electing and approving of this Mayor.

Anonymous said...

I am a lifelong Mets fan, but I haven't attended a game for the last two seasons, and I will NEVER step foot into the new stadium, no matter how nice it might look. I can catch a better ballgame down the block on the ballfield on 114 Street, across from the public school. At least those kids play with heart, and for the love of the game.

Anonymous said...

**Everytime I start to like this blog I start to read some of the commentaries and the maturity and lack of any sort of comprehensive thinking make sick. No wonder everyone in Manhattan and Brooklyn think that Queens is an oasis of idiots.

What comments are you referring to?Are those comments from a local person? And what excact comment are you saying has no maturity?
Manhattan has plenty of well schooled rude,self important, myopic idiots.Brooklyn is a haven of intellectual thinkers??I dont think so.Maybe if you think the world revolves around 4 neighborhoods in Brooklyn that think they invented all things original.I got news for you.Brooklyn is the laughing stock of other major cities in the country when it comes to arts and literature.
Go ask people in the Bronx how they feel about the mess to any other the few defenders of this corporate welfare.
* Citi Field is not being built by the city, the surrounding infrastructure improvements are. Keep your facts straight.
WRONG.
The park in the neighborhood next to the staduim is ruined and wont be the same size when its built again for kids in the area.