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April 3, 2011
Brooklyn pastor scores prime seats at Nets' new venue
New York Post
By Gary Buiso
Rev. Daughtry was for jobs, hoops and housing for the Atlantic Yards project. Who knows when the jobs and housing might show up. He's got hoops!
Want Nets tickets? You'll have to make a higher calling.
Rev. Herbert Daughtry, pastor of a Boerum Hill church, will have the final say over the distribution of 54 free tickets and a luxury box for every event at the new Nets arena when it opens next year.
The deal is part of a "community benefits agreement" the clergyman -- who was a high-profile proponent of the arena's construction -- hammered out with developer Forest City Ratner on behalf of his nonprofit Downtown Brooklyn Neighborhood Association, which was formed with $50,000 in seed money from Forest City in 2005.
The deal includes four seats in the $1 billion Barclays Center's lower bowl, 50 ducats in the upper section, and a posh suite, according to Nets spokesman Barry Baum.
...
"This is [Daughtry's] little piece of the pie for having been a cheerleader to Ratner," said Candace Carponter, legal director of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, a group opposed to Atlantic Yards.
Related coverage...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Who Needs Housing When You Have Free Tix?
So just when it looked like all the promised benefits of the Atlantic Yards project--loads of construction jobs, lots of affordable housing--were empty promises, Bruce Ratner has finally come through with the big payoff for the community. Well, not exactly for the community, but for long-time Ratner cheerleader Rev. Herbert Daughtry, who will get to distribute 54 free tickets and a luxury box for every event at the new Nets arena when it opens next year.
And those gratis ducats aren't chump change. Season tickets for the Nets went on sale last week, with an average price of $132 a seat, about double the prices that prevailed last season in New Jersey. Fans were not delighted, even with the lowest price point. According to one commenter on a Nets fan site:
In the end, I may actually be priced out of this place if I don’t want to be in the rafters. Think about the starting price of $99 for the All Access Pass ticket sections. That’s $99 per game, per seat so basically...you are signing a contract to pay $26,400 for 2 seats for the next 3 years without knowing what the product will be on the floor.
To me, that’s just too much at this point....
But displaced fans shouldn't look to Daughtry for his freebies. The Reverend told the New York Post that "he hopes to use some tickets as a carrot for kids to get better grades and perhaps offer the suite to sick patients at Fort Greene's Brooklyn Hospital Center."
Better yet: maybe that luxury box could be retrofited to be the affordable housing component of Atlantic Yards. Who says promises don't come true?
Atlantic Yards Report, Post focuses on the Rev. Daughtry's control of arena tickets; will he also control use of the arena ten times a year by community groups?
The New York Post discovers that the Reverend Herbert Daughtry and his created-for-the-Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) Downtown Brooklyn Neighborhood Alliance (DBNA) will be in charge of free tickets for the Barclays Center arena, as we've long known.
But the big news--if true--was slipped in as an aside: Daughtry's group also would control the ten-times-a-year use of the arena by community groups. That was never specified in the DCBA.
Daughtry's role
In Brooklyn pastor scores prime seats at Nets' new venue, the Post reports:
Want Nets tickets? You'll have to make a higher calling.
Rev. Herbert Daughtry, pastor of a Boerum Hill church, will have the final say over the distribution of 54 free tickets and a luxury box for every event at the new Nets arena when it opens next year.
The deal is part of a "community benefits agreement" the clergyman -- who was a high-profile proponent of the arena's construction -- hammered out with developer Forest City Ratner on behalf of his nonprofit Downtown Brooklyn Neighborhood Association, which was formed with $50,000 in seed money from Forest City in 2005.
The deal includes four seats in the $1 billion Barclays Center's lower bowl, 50 ducats in the upper section, and a posh suite, according to Nets spokesman Barry Baum.
Note: I reported after the March 2010 groundbreaking that Daughtry had spoken of controlling access to 50 free tickets--valued at $33,000, a mere blip in the total of public subsidies and tax breaks the developer has received.
(I'm assuming such $15 tickets would all sell out. And while lower bowl seats and a a suite would have a higher face value, it shouldn't be assumed that any value should be assigned, since they wouldn't all sell out.)
Some background
The Post reports:
The 80-year-old activist, who was an adviser to the Rev. Jesse Jackson and slain rapper Tupac Shakur, found God after doing a four-year stint in state and federal prison in 1953 for attempted armed robbery.
Daughtry's group was among eight that signed the benefits agreement in 2005 and stand to gain as the project proceeds. One signatory, for example, the Mutual Housing Association of New York -- it replaced the defunct activist group ACORN and in 2008 received a $1.5 million loan from Forest City -- will be in charge of marketing the project's affordable-housing component.
It's worth mentioning that, while Daughtry claims to live in Brooklyn, he raised his kids in Teaneck, NJ.
As for ACORN, that was not a $1.5 million loan, but a $1.5 million grant/loan. The distinction isn't crucial; ACORN isn't paying Forest City Ratner, and the developer still got a good deal.
Posted by steve at April 3, 2011 11:00 PM