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March 3, 2008
Voices: Bloomie's fuzzy math on stadiums
MetroNY, Opinion
Neil deMause doesn't call Mayor Bloomberg a liar (though he could have) in explaining why the Yankee Stadium deal is so lousy for the City.
On his weekly radio show Friday, Mayor Bloomberg was asked why the city was subsidizing stadiums for the Mets and Yankees. His response: “The city and the state, to my recollection, each put in $75 million” for each new stadium — a mere fraction of the total cost. “It was a really good deal,” he added.
For a data-crazed mayor, Bloomberg can be awfully loose with his numbers.
Tally up the cost of replacing the parkland that was sucked up by the deal, lost tax revenue from tax-exempt bonds, a property tax abatement that runs forever, no sales tax on construction materials...
Add in the new Metro-North station, the three new parking garages and other scattered freebies, and the latest tally for the taxpayer tab is $807 million. The Steinbrenner family, meanwhile, even with the extra $300 million in upgrades they announced last month, will be out just $650 million. (For the Mets, the corresponding numbers are $468 million public of public money and $306 million of team money.)
NoLandGrab: Beware, Developer Bruce Ratner and the City are touting the same kind of funny numbers for the Nets arena and Atlantic Yards.
Posted by lumi at March 3, 2008 4:53 AM