February 04, 2005
Cablevision: We'll trump Jets offer
I almost fell off my chair when I saw this one: Cablevision - owner of Madison Square Garden and devout foe of the New York Jets' stadium plans - has sent a letter to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority offering to buy the proposed stadium site for $600 million and develop it themselves. According to Crain's New York, which broke the story a few minutes ago, Cablevision would build a mixed-use residential community on the rail yards site, similar to what the Regional Plan Association suggested back in December.
The Cablevision offer isn't quite as lucrative as it at first appears: Part of the $600 million sale price would go toward decking over the rail yards, so the MTA would only net $225 million from the deal. (City and state taxpayers would save $600 million by not having to build the platform and stadium roof, but that's not the MTA's primary concern.) That's still more than double what the Jets are offering, though, and nearly as much as the $300 million the MTA says it's seeking.
(LATE NOTE: I just saw the actual Cablevision press release on this, which states that its $600 million bid is "an opening proposal should the MTA choose to begin an auction for the property," and so presumably could go even higher.)
If nothing else, MTA chair Peter Kalikow's line, repeated ad infinitum at yesterday's state assembly hearing, that the Jets offer is the only available "bird in the hand" just got much, much more complicated. And now that one unsolicited bid has been offered, who knows who else might get involved? Can you say Trump City South?
Wow! Let the bidding war begin !
That's the way it should be. Let private sector developers competitively BID for the space.
What is this "public review" Doctoroff talks about in his press release?
i spoke to a Jets employee on Wednesday they still think its 60 - 40 that their getting the stadium. Then he b.s'ed his head off about how wonderful it is and how the Jets have no B plan in the works except dealing with the NJSEA about how unfairly their getting treated with the lease issue compared to the Giants . I'm hoping though for this mixed use facility with a supposed 7x the profits as earlier stated. Again what a great move, no one saw this coming. Trump was on NY1 too stating that the he loved both ideas, and knows each owner well so i don't think he's that adamant about getting involved in this real estate deal at least now.
The Jets' "appraisal" of the site's value is a total scam. According to the Post, "The Jets' appraiser came up with a $36.9 million price, claiming the team should be credited with the $300 million cost of building a platform over the rail yards."
This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. No objective appraisal discounts the property's value because of future expenses to be borne by the developer. We're talking about a huge chunk of waterfront property in Manhattan, for chrissakes. You don't have to have taken Real Estate 101 to figure out that the value of such a site is a heck of a lot more than $37 million. And the MTA appraisal was another joke, reducing the $923 million price for the entire lot down to $600 million because the stadium wouldn't take up the entire space of the site. So, let me follow the logic of that. If I want to buy a prime lot on Park Avenue that's worth $100 million, but I'm only going to build an outhouse on it, the property is worth $10,000, because the outhouse doesn't take up the entire lot!!
Let's hope the MSG bid is a serious one. Even at a buying price of $600 million, a savvy developer could make a lot of money off that site with some intelligently designed mixed-use development.
I'm guessing that by "public review" Doctoroff meant the years of hearings that the Hudson Yards project went through ... which, of course, specifically excluded the stadium. Mike Lupica of the Daily News tears into the "public review" line in today's column: http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/278289p-238305c.html
