Results tagged “concessionreviewcommittee”

A state judge has shot down Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to rent sports fields on Randalls Island to private schools because the administration failed to follow the legally required land-use review process when it made the deal. The plan was for private schools to pay $2.6 million a year for the next two decades in exchange for use of the renovated fields during peak hours from 3pm to 6pm. The Parks Department had agreed to contribute $65 million to refurbishing 36 sports fields and building new fields on 12.5 acres of the island.

The city's Franchise and Concession Review Committee is scheduled to vote this coming week on whether or not to approve a proposal to have twenty Manhattan private schools pay for part of the renovation of Randall's Island athletic fields in return for exclusive use of a majority of the fields. The plan, which is separate from the controversial water park, calls for schools such as Dalton and Spence to pay the city $52 million dollars over twenty years. The city would kick in an additional $18 million for the fields, and $53 million for island infrastructure. In return for the payment the schools would get exclusive 3-6 p.m. use of at least two-thirds of the 63 playing fields.

Gothamist thinks everyone could have predicted this a couple years ago: The city's much ballyhooed deal with Snapple to be the official drink of the city has come up way short of original goals. The city had reduced the value of the $126 million deal to only $33 million. The Mayor's office is claiming that perhaps they were too ambitious with their goals, but Gothamist would imagine that if anyone at Bloomberg LLP said they were going to fall $93 million, they'd be in hot water. The Post has some of the revised numbers and revised thinking:

The original goal of 5 million cases over five years has now been taken down to just 330,000. Each case holds 24 cans or bottles, which generally go for $1 each.

Continue reading "Snapple Deal Bad at the Core"

No longer will children have to go to Hurricane Harbor or Dorney Park because the Daily News reports that the city has a proposal in hand for a $168 million, 26 acre water park on Randall's Island in the East River. The park, originally proposed in as a smaller 12 acre park in 1999, would be paid for by Aquatic Development Group, who would have a 35-year lease with the city. The park plans call for all your typical water park features like wave pools and water slides but also a manmade river for rafters and an indoor beach.

Oh, boo hoo. The Bloomberg administration is asking the courts to let the administration be in charge of marketing deals, instead of putting any possible sponsorships through the Franchise and Concession Review Committee. City Comptroller William Thomspon had been critical of the city's deal with Snapple and a later court ruling said that any sponsorships would need to be reviewed, though the Snapple deal could stand. Newsday reports that a lawyer for the Bloomberg administration says that "subjecting the city to such 'cumbersome administrative proceedings' as review by the franchise committee could possibly lessen the economic benefits of such deals in the future." That's hilarious, because cumbersome administrative proceedings is what this country was built on! City Comptroller Thompson is still arguing that these kinds of deals need public process. Translation: Bloomberg, don't think all your friends can get sweetheart deals.