Atlantic Yards Staying Alive, Thanks To Sweet MTA Deal

As expected, the MTA board voted yesterday to approve a less lucrative deal to sell the Vanderbilt Railyards in Prospect Heights to developer Bruce Ratner, who won a bid to buy the property for $100 million (which is less than the land's $200+ million appraised value) in 2005. The MTA will now accept just $20 million up front and the rest in installments over the next two decades. However, a last-minute counter-offer made by Atlantic Yards opponent Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, for $120 million to be paid over the next 12 years, was ignored by the MTA.

In defending the new deal, MTA Chairman Dale Hemmerdinger says, "The real estate market is a whole lot weaker than it was in 2005." But some officials, like Councilman David Yassky, are highly displeased to see the bailed-out MTA sell prime real estate for so little; he tells the Daily News, "I stood up for this agency to say ... they need the money to keep the bus and the subways running. If you turn around and say, 'Oh, forget it, we don't need the $100 million, we'll just take the 20,' it just undercuts everything."

Now the race is really on for Ratner: According to the Times, he hopes to sell $586 million in tax-exempt state bonds before a December 31st deadline and break ground on the $772 million arena, which despite a cost-cutting dumb-down, would still be the most expensive basketball arena in the country.

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By John Del Signore in News on June 25, 2009 10:24 AM

Comments [rss]

felixthecat2

http://www.r8ny.com/blog/gothamwars/mayor_bloomberg_gassing_geese_to_save_face.html

felixthecat2

http://www.r8ny.com/blog/gothamwars/mayor_bloomberg_gassing_geese_to_save_face.html

Think2wice

Ratner must have a horseshoe, a 4-leaf clover, and a rabbit's foot up his ass or something.

r1b2

Can you please increase my fare and reduce services delivered to me to underwrite the costs? I'd like to be a part of the solution. Thanks.

r1b2

Can you please increase my fare and reduce services delivered to me to underwrite the costs? I'd like to be a part of the solution. Thanks.

grandeur

wow, I haven't felt true anger in a while. Thanks MTA!

spiritross

Better start from the top this fall with Mr. "I spit on the very idea of american Democracy" Mike Bloomberg.

missbloom

"Hatred" does not begin to describe how I feel about these goons. I will be voting as many of them out of office as I can, ASAP, and you should too.

matty

Look, I know that this whole deal stinks but the guy from Develop don't destroy Brooklyn can't create a counter-offer in a transaction that he is not involved in.

I think he was suggesting it more than anything else. Still, kinda weird. It's akin to being at mcdonald's and suggesting the mcdonald's employee that they should really be asking the customer for more money for that cheeseburger...it just doesn't make sense.

pal

this is a disgrace. it's ultimately bloomberg's fault. he bent over backwards for ratner and set the climate for this sort of shit. it's pathetic.

whitecastlerock

It's about jobs. When Mayor Mike sees the plans for that arena, he sees jobs. Solar panels on that roof... Can this citizens of this fucking city not vote for this despicable midget piece of shit? I honestly don't think Freddy Ferrer would have demolished two ballparks, built 2 new ones, raise taxes, while the city's infrastructure crumbles...

pal

blooberg likes to dumb-down the NYC masses by giving them jobs selling hot-dogs or working at ikea or in chains stores. thats his idea of "jobs". instead of raising a billion and a half dollars to improves schools and libraries and educate people, he raises that kind of moeny for stadiums and then tells everyone they're going to get "jobs".

imadick

the city funds for the ballparks came from guiliani. bloomberg tried to stop it, but rudy wrote the contracts with penalties big enough that it didn't make sense to pull out of them.

whitecastlerock

Bloomberg poured hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into those stadiums. Giuliani's proposals were for less...

Polite New Yorker

This is a deal that should have never seen the light of day. It is a textbook example of bought and paid for politicians, bogus "grassroots" organizations (the notoriously fraudulent ACORN was a big supporter of the Atlantic Yards project), and misguided union leaders being swindled by an unscrupulous developer.

The legitimate community groups that oppose this plan don't have millions of dollars to buy MTA land at a fair price, but neither does Bruce Ratner.

felixthecat2

http://angrynyer.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/bloomopoly1.jpg

felixthecat2

Acorn aka Working family Party are rotten and support Christine Quinn and other rotten politicians. They even support John Liu for comptroller after he handed them a $10,000 check. John Liu is ethically challenged as his father who was convicted of Bank Fraud.

nicemarmot

Oh. My. God. Seriously. I'm speechless.

imadick

gee, i wonder why that crackpot "community" organization wasn't taken seriously? could it be, perhaps, that they have less than a quarter million dollars in the bank?

from their unreadably bad 90s-style website:

"We are funded entirely by individual donations from the community at large and through various fundraising events we and supporters have organized. We have the financial support of well over 4,000 individual donors, with a median donation of $55."