« As Arenas Sprout, a Scramble to Keep Them Filled | Main | Yards supporters outnumber foes »

June 29, 2009

MTA Atlantic Yards bailout: post fare-hike edition

Noticing New York, Naming a Problem: The MTA Gives Ratner the Right to Name Brooklyn Subway Stations "Barclays"

Michael D.D. White raises a whole host of issues with the MTA's sale of station-naming rights to Barclays and Forest City, including whether the sum the MTA will receive is remotely adequate, the breakneck speed with which the deal was struck, and how the MTA board members raised nary a question.

How did the MTA negotiate handing Ratner the right to put the Barclay name on New York’s Brooklyn transit hub subway stations? WNYC reports that the MTA’s Gary Dellaverson, the MTA’’s Chief Financial Officer, explained: “We kinda felt our way into it.” That may be an understatement: Even as the MTA’s board meeting to approve the deal was underway, an MTA staffer was in the hallway outside the meeting on his cell phone trying to find out exactly what the deal was and what the board in the room next door should be told about it. When the board bothered to ask, it was clarified that the right to have the Barclays name on the subway station did not extend to the right to have the Barclay name on the interconnecting Long Island Railroad Station/Terminal. (Could it then still be named something else?) There were obviously a lot of other questions the board should also have been asking.

Advertising Age, Cash-Strapped Cities Turn to Marketers for Help

What's next? Will iconic American locales such as Route 66 or treasured public institutions such as the Smithsonian be up for grabs?

Actually, yes.

The MTA deal has gotten other New York agencies thinking. Selling naming rights is "not something that we've aggressively pursued in the past," said a spokesman for the New York Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. "But given the economic realities, it's something we're taking a closer look at."

NY Daily News, Voice of the People for June 29, 2009 [Scroll down]

Time on his side

Staten Island: Where do the city and MTA get off giving Bruce Ratner a break ("Yards upfront price chop," June 25). The MTA says it has no cash so there has to be a higher fare, but Ratner doesn't have to pay up for 21 years. Let the fare hike take place in 21 years.

Michael Scafiddi

Atlantic Yards Report, MIA again: The Times editorial page on the MTA's bailout of Ratner (except for the naming rights deal)

And it was not surprising, alas, that the New York Times editorial page was again missing in action regarding the deal as a whole, though today it offered a critical but essentially tangential editorial opposing the deal to add the name "Barclays Center" to the Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street station.
...

Of course, the Times is unlikely to write anything that would fundamentally threaten the interests of Forest City Ratner, business partner of the parent New York Times Company in the Times Tower. After all, as editorial writer Carolyn Curiel has said, "Our goal is to reflect the spirit of the Times and the opinion of the publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr."

The same thing occurred last week.

In doing so, the Times went against the interests of not merely the Atlantic Yards opposition but the Straphangers Campaign, which represents a broad cross-section of New Yorkers and warned of a "rush to judgment," and even the AY-supporting Regional Plan Association, which, while not denouncing a dubious process, at least made the reasonable point that the deal should be retooled to give the MTA a greater share of future revenues.

Contrast in the past

And the Times's silence was glaring, when contrasted with a somewhat parallel situation in 1994, when the newspaper repeatedly editorialized against renegotiating a deal with a developer:
After so many years of delay, there is no need to rush into a sweetheart deal. The property will still be there in a few years. A rebounding economy will likely increase its value. It is wiser to walk away than stumble into a giveaway.

Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Times Misses Forest for Trees

Uhm, no, it is not a "goodly sum," it is a badly sum. And this is a non-issue, especially in relation to the MTA's bailout of Ratner.

Park Slope Courier, Bruce Ratner seals sweetheart deal with MTA

Project booster Stephen Witt reports, more or less straightforwardly, on last week's developments.

Next stop, Atlantic Avenue Barclay’s Center − home of yoooour Brooklyn Nets!

Both the Empire State Development Corporation and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority last week did their part in furthering along the 22−acre Atlantic Yards project, which includes bringing the borough its first major professional team since the Dodgers left Brooklyn.

2nd Ave. Sagas, Times kinda sorta supports naming rights deal

Posted by eric at June 29, 2009 10:28 AM