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June 2, 2009
Atlantic Yards, for Better or Worse
WNYC News Blog
by Matthew Schuerman
Atlantic Yards is looking like a worse and worse deal for the city treasury, according to the Independent Budget Office. Back in 2005, the nonpartisan IBO said the new Nets arena would bring the city $28.5 million more in tax revenue than it would cost in subsidies, over the next 30 years (PDF). But the city has since decided to pitch in about twice the amount of money it said it would spend back then. And as the costs of the arena have grown, the city stands to lose more money because of an agreement that it would not collect mortgage recording taxes and sales taxes.
The IBO didn’t come up with a new estimate, but numbers outlined at a state legislative hearing Friday suggest that the city would see a net loss of about $76 million (PDF).
David Lombino, spokesman for the Economic Development Corporation, said the IBO report is incomplete since it only considers the economic impact of the arena, and not the housing and office space.
NoLandGrab: EDC spokesman Lombino's contention that the IBO report is "incomplete" is laughable, since the only "analysis" of the Atlantic Yards project's fiscal impact conducted by EDC a) relied wholly on Forest City Ratner's unsupportable claims and b) didn't deduct the cost of subsidies.
Posted by eric at June 2, 2009 9:02 AM