December 10, 2003
H to the izz-oops
At a packed-to-overflowing press conference this morning at Brooklyn Borough Hall, developer Bruce Ratner - flanked by New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, Guggenheim Bilbao architect Frank Gehry, and rapper/limited partner Jay-Z - unveiled his plans for a $2.5 billion complex in downtown Brooklyn that would include an arena for the New Jersey Nets. In addition to the Gehry-designed arena, the project would include 4,000 units of housing and two million square feet of office space, and would require the demolition of two existing blocks of the adjacent Prospect Heights neighborhood (likely by city eminent domain).
The presentation was long on balsa-wood models, but short on financial specifics. Both Ratner and Bloomberg insisted that most of the costs would be paid for with private money, though the city would kick back sales and income taxes from the new arena to help pay for construction - the same controversial "tax increment financing" plan that has been proposed for a New York Jets stadium in Manhattan. (Ratner wouldn't say how much public TIF money would be involved, though other reports have pegged it at about $500 million.) Then there's the land, most of which is now rail yards for the Long Island Rail Road. When a reporter asked how much Ratner was planning to pay the cash-strapped public Metropolitan Transportation Authority for development rights, and whether that was included in the $2.5 billion figure, the developer would say only that he planned to "pay fair market value"; Mayor Bloomberg likewise bobbed and weaved, joking that "it's not enough to balance anybody's budget." (Previous estimates have pegged the value of the land at as much as $500 million.)
In addition to the financing, the plan faces one other obstacle: landing the Nets. Promised Ratner: "If we do not get the team, there will not be a project. Because that's the centerpiece."
