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May 10, 2009
Of Illicit Leases and Typhoid Mary
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
This item ties together this past week's court ruling with financial issues plaguing Forest City Ratner.
As if Bruce Ratner needed any more obstacles, a state appeals court has upheld a judge’s March 2007 decision that another developer improperly assigned leases to a Pacific Street building and adjacent parking lot to an affiliate of FCR.
...
Weinstein's property comprises about one acre of the 22 acres in the proposed Atlantic Yards project, and Weinstein is also a participant in the Goldstein et al. v. Empire State Development Corporation eminent domain lawsuit. Says AYR writer Norman Oder:
"...the ruling can't stop the state from using eminent domain to take the properties, but it might make it more costly, as Weinstein has contended that Boymelgreen’s deal with Ratner would diminish the value of his property."
And "more costly" isn't the kind of phrase the Ratner team needs to hear right now. In his Gumby Fresh blog, the pseudonymous blogger Gari N. Corp takes the New York Times to task for its "special dumbness about stadium finance bond insurance" (and the NYT should be grateful that it attracts Mr. Corp's scorn only rarely, as his dissection is both merciless and quite funny).
After untangling the issue of the Mets' stadium bonds to conclude that the downgrading of the bonds' insurer was not, as the Times suggested, tantamount to downgrading the bonds themselves, he added this caution:
"Before anyone says that...the preceding might be construed as a clean bill of health for the business of New York sports, please read the bit about the Mets' resilient brand, and note also that the Mets attracted new financing from the one standing bond insurer (Assured Guaranty) for a small amount for a pretty much complete stadium for a solid team. It won't do the same for the Nets. The New Jersey Nets are the Typhoid Mary of High Finance, and no-one wants to eat their delightful cooking."
Posted by steve at May 10, 2009 8:56 AM