From the Daily News:
THE FIRM that built and manages the new Yankee Stadium parking garages can’t repay $237 million in tax-exempt bonds the Bloomberg administration arranged for it four years ago, new financial records show.
Bronx Parking Development Company LLC is running perilously low on cash reserves and faces a looming default by the end of the year, according to a report filed Friday by a trustee for the firm’s bondholders.
Time is running out, in other words, to avoid one of the biggest failures in decades of bonds issued by a New York City agency.
The simple fact is that Bloomberg and his aides made a costly mistake when they succumbed back in 2005 to the Yankees’ demand for a 9,000-space garage system. It was all part of the deal for the team to build a new stadium in the Bronx.
But Yankees fans have shunned the garages, where gameday self-parking rates soared last year to $35 — up from $23 previously and more than double the original $14 charge. Valet parking now goes for $48.
So many fans are staying away, in part due to the lure of cheaper local competition, that Bronx Parking Development now projects only 3,500 paying customers per game for the upcoming season.
12 comments:
Lower it to $45.00, and the schmucks that shell out hundreds of dollars for a ticket to a ballgame will think they found a bargain, and fall over each other to park there. In the end, Major League sports fans always prove themselves to be SCHMUCKS!
Didn't see this coming...
NOT!!!
I always thought the JETS parking was a ripoff years ago at $15 & $20. They had club parking that when broken out cost $80! That included priority in & out of the stadium with a spot almost next to the gate - so at least you got some value. (But I never ever paid for that - they were tossed my way). At Yankee staduim the parking was always expensive and people parked because everyone feared that because your in the Bronx, your car would not be safe anywhere else! And as the previous poster indicated baseball fans are SCHMUCKS to pay up for lousy seats, garbage expensive food and watch a game that is simply a boring slow game played by overweight millionaire lazy players.
Wait till the Wilpons start defaulting on payments of citi field..this is what you get when sport teams threaten cities with leaving unless the city ponies up money for un-needed stadiums....and all of this is eventually paid by the tax-payers.
Who saw this coming?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJgmME5l_Os
i thought BLOOMIE would be happy people are taking mass transit.
How do you spend $237 million building a few parking lots ?
$35 to park? Crazy. Also crazy: did it really cost $237 million to build a parking lot? That's NY prevailing wage jobs for you.
$237 million for 3500 spots? That's $67,700 per spot. Even at capacity, 9,000 spots that's $26,333.
Try walking into a bank or venture capitalist with that as your business plan.
I went to a Yankee game late last year, deep discounted tickets from Stub-Hub, with a buddy who had a sprained ankle. The idiot slid into second and rolled it.
I pulled up to a garage and asked the price. The gent told me $45 or $48, I can't remember. I told him "no way" and offered a twenty.
He looked left and right, and tried to grab my Jackson. I pulled back and demanded a Paid Recipt first. He looked insulted but gave it to me and he got the twenty.
My friend hobbled and I walked over to Stan's to have a couple of ridiculously priced Bud's and then made our way over to the stadium for ludicrously priced fare and the game.
After the Yankee win we went to the garage and before I got into my car the same garage attendant came over and told me the next time I come to the game I should ask for Jaime. I gave him a $5 tip and was off.
Two weeks later I went back to the stadium and the same garage. I asked for Jaime he came running and gave me the same deal.
You gotta be ballsy, know how to negotiate with these guys and you'll get a break on the price. Remember, it's all cash and cash talks.
Perhaps the next step will be to take the government interventionism one step deeper into the economy. Because their first idea didn't work out the way the administrators planned, they must now think up even more creative ways to "force and compel" people to follow their rules. They cannot afford to let the garage "go under." They MUST bail it out and float it some kind of rent-a-center style payment plan.
Or maybe the mayor could post guards in front of the stadium on "city property," blocking entrance to the turn styles, then they could refuse people entry to the stadium unless they show a stub from their "approved" parking garage. Or maybe they could start "creatively" ticketing cars all over the area that selfishly think of their "own family budget" before that of "the city's." Or if that ultimately fails to get the job done, maybe once the game starts, they could have those same guards sneak in those scab lots that allow those "outrageously below city approved fair market rates" and allow them to start vandalizing the cars of those evil-doer's!
...........or the SCHMUCKS could finally and collectively decide to stop going to Yankee and Mets games.
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