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December 15, 2006
Atlantic Yards a losing bet
The Brooklyn Papers
This week's BP editorial is troubled by the missing $435 million from the Atlantic Yards project proposal revenue projections:
If there was any doubt that Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards mega-development would be a bad investment of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, it was wiped away this week by new revelations that the project will generate far less tax revenue than promised just five months ago.
As The Brooklyn Papers reports this week, buried — not announced, but buried! — in a 2,000-page state document is the news that Ratner’s much-touted “economic engine for Downtown Brooklyn” is now projected to create $944 million in city and state tax revenues over the next 30 years.
Do the math: That means that the city and state — whose annual budgets are tens of billions of dollars — will see just $15 million a year in new revenues from Atlantic Yards.
And, they aren't buying Bruce Ratner's excuse:
Ratner has trimmed the commercial component of his project — which means fewer new jobs and, therefore, less tax revenue — but that was his plan all along. From Metrotech to Atlantic Center to Atlantic Terminal, Ratner has a track record of promising lots of new office jobs and then not delivering. His three office complexes are filled with public, taxpayer-funded offices — the ESDC itself is housed in Atlantic Center! — guaranteeing Ratner’s profit.
Bruce Ratner’s goal all along has been to float fantasy revenue projections so that politicians and the public would be wowed. But his shock and awe campaign has failed.
Posted by lumi at December 15, 2006 7:40 AM