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September 10, 2009
Report Finds Net Loss to City From Atlantic Yards Arena
City Room
by Sewell Chan
We opted to post this story separately from the previous round-up of stories on the IBO report in order to point up some of the nonsense coming out of the NYC Economic Developerment Corporation.
The proposed basketball arena that has long been the centerpiece of the contentious Atlantic Yards development near Downtown Brooklyn would result in a net loss to the city of nearly $40 million over 30 years, according to a new report prepared by the city’s Independent Budget Office.
The report stands in contrast to an earlier report in 2005 by the same office, which concluded that the 18,000-seat arena would result in a net fiscal benefit for the city. Since then, city subsidies for the project — now estimated to cost $772 million — have grown. So has uncertainty about the project, which would transform a 22-acre site that is currently centered around a below-grade railyard owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
...City officials tried to play down the report’s significance on Wednesday.
David Lombino, a spokesman for the city’s Economic Development Corporation, said in a phone interview, “The report is sloppy and contains numerous inaccuracies.”
NoLandGrab: "Sloppy and contains numerous inaccuracies?" Why, that sounds exactly like the testimony of Lombino's boss, EDC president Seth Pinsky, at the May 29th NY State Senate hearing on Atlantic Yards. From Atlantic Yards Report's coverage of that hearing:
Deceptions from NYC EDC's Pinsky
Similarly, Seth Pinsky, president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, in prepared testimony maintained that the project would produce more than half a billion dollars in new tax revenues to the city, but acknowledged later that he was using a study from 2005, which calculated new revenues on 2 million square feet of office space.
Only one office tower, with less than one-third of the previous square footage, is now part of Forest City Ratner's announced configuration, and it's on indefinite hold. He later added: "We’re in the process of updating that analysis… we expect it to still be an extremely positive number."
OK, maybe sloppy and inaccurate is too kind — how about knowingly misleading and blatantly untrue? But wait, there's more.
[Lombino] said the report factored in costs associated with the entire project — the arena and the planned mixed-used development around it — while only counting the benefits from the arena.
NLG: "Only counting the benefits from the arena?" Is that like not counting the costs of the project? Here's AYR again, on the May 29th hearing:
NYC EDC calls it a "fiscal impact analysis." It acknowledges no offsetting costs or subsidies, so it's not a "cost-benefit analysis," despite Pinsky's deceptive use of the term.
Click thru for more of EDC's tall tales.
NLG: We don't know what's worse — that the NYC Economic Development Corporation doesn't have a clue, or knowingly misleads the taxpayers for the benefit of a private developer.
Posted by eric at September 10, 2009 2:52 PM