Results tagged “publicauthoritiescontrolboard”

In keeping with the earlier report this week, the planned conversion of the James A. Farley Post Office into a new transit center, the Moynihan Station, moved a step closer to reality. Yesterday, the Public Authorities Control Board voted to approve spending $230 million to buy the post office.

The Public Authorities Control Board votred to approve the Atlantic Yards project. This means the last minute effort to convince Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to vote yes on the project worked, and Governor Pataki can leave office knowing that the project passed during his term. However, expect lawsuits to delay the project from going forward.

happen today and that Silver may, in fact, okay the massive $4 billion project as long as Governor Pataki "doesn't tie it to other projects," according to NY1.

NY State Assembly Speaker Sheldon has done it again: NY1 reports that Silver has delayed ruling on the Atlantic Yards project because "he still has financial questions." The NY Sun had a story today about growing pressure for Silver to delay the vote, given outcry from not just civic groups like the Municipal Art Society, Regional Plan Association, Citizen's Union, and National Resources Defense Council, but other politicians as well. Brooklyn Papers also adds that the AY is a "$4-billion project would require hundreds of millions in direct and indirect public subsidies, but the actual size of the taxpayer contribution to the project has never been released." So there are big questions, and it's not just Silver showing off his power.

It’s another defining week for the Atlantic Yards. On Wednesday, the 8 million square-foot project faces one of its last hurdles: approval by the Public Authorities Control Board, the state oversight body that monitors Albany’s fiscal commitments to projects like the Yards. PACB votes have derailed large-scale projects before, most notably last year when Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver and Joseph Bruno, the Senate majority leader, killed the West Side Stadium plan. Of course, it’s no secret how Pataki, who also has a vote, will go.

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan is probably turning in his grave right now. Plans for the Moynihan Station have been "derailed" as plans to discuss it have been postponed. Officials had been hoping that the Public Authorities Control Board would approve the project this year, so it would happen under Governor Pataki's term. But with opposition to and many questions surrounding the project, the NY Times reports "the Pataki administration took the proposal off the table again yesterday rather than risk a vote against it." Hello, brinksmanship!

Some of the folks working on the neverending story that is the Moynihan Station (aka the Penn Station) are starting to publicly complain about the politcal developement hell that it has become. In a letter to State economic czar Charles Gargano developers Steven Roth and Stephen Ross wrote that "the functional heart" of the station "will have its own independent utility... and therefore there is no reason to delay." In otherwords, even if Madison Square Garden does get the go-ahead to move over to Ninth Avenue such a move should have little to do with the actual conversion of the Farley Post Office into a train station.

Plans for a new stadium for New York's two local baseball teams was approved by the Empire State Development Corporation's board yesterday. The two stadiums, with a combined stadium only cost of over $1.2 billion. Along with the preliminary approval, the board released some additional details on the two stadiums.

- Next Thursday: The State Supreme Court will rule whether or not the MTA's acceptance of the Jets' bid for the West side railyards is legal, with the Cablevision lawsuit against the bid leading the pack.Honestly, our head is spinning. It's a soap opera, except a lot of old men are involved and there aren't any spoken monologues to mirrors - at least, there aren't any that we are aware of. Earlier this week, Mayor Bloomberg said on his radio show about the IOC, "The site selection committee puts out their report on the 6th of June, which is Monday [in] a week, and rumor has it that the report will be very complimentary on New York, with the one caveat that is the question about the stadium." Oh, please. Mayor B, we get that you have to do your job, but even a baby knows that's spin.

The Village Voice on why the Jets' claims that their bid will bring in minority jobs may be "full of hot air." And the Daily News' Juan Gonzalez on how the MTA's decision to grant Jets the West Side railyards was like watching a sting.