Field of Schemes: MTA: Let a thousand bidders bloom

February 15, 2005

MTA: Let a thousand bidders bloom

New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority has asked for final bids by March 21 from the Jets and Cablevision - and anyone else who might be interested in developing its West Side rail yards site. "Anybody that's interested in it can put in a bid," MTA spokesperson Tom Kelly told Reuters.

That's right - the competitive bidding process that seemed like a pipe dream when mayoral candidate Freddy Ferrer proposed it two weeks ago is now a reality, after a topsy-turvy week in which Cablevision, owners of Madison Square Garden, shocked Jets stadium boosters by bidding more than three times what the football team had offered for the site. The binding arbitration that the Jets and MTA had envisioned at the beginning of the month is now likely to be abandoned; as the New York Times' Charles Bagli writes, with bidding now open to all comers, "to stay in the bidding game, the Jets will likely have to offer more than the $100 million they had planned to pay for the area."

The Village Voice's Tom Robbins, meanwhile, reports (in a story filed before the open-bidding announcement was made) that the Jets could have plenty of competition for the site:

[Former MTA chair Richard] Ravitch, who said he had no way of knowing whether the Garden's offer was sincere, insisted that if the site were placed on the open market it would bring legitimate bids far larger than that made by the Jets.

"If they really open up the process they will get a lot of proposals," said Ravitch. "And it will be a funny irony, because they will get a lot of offers from developers outside of New York."

Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, which has offered its own alternative scheme for the site, agrees. "There is enormous and vastly increased developer interest in the site just over the last few months," he said. Since the Garden's proposal made the news, developers have been calling in from outside the city, Yaro said. "I can't mention names, but there have been discussions with some of the biggest developers in the world."

The reason why only out-of-town developers would be involved: New York City developers, as reported yesterday, are reportedly afraid to show interest in the site, or speak out against the stadium, for fear of the mayor's office denying them permits for other projects in the city. (Ravitch recently referred to city developers as being "in the witness protection program.") "There is a reign of terror in this town," Yaro told Robbins, recalling his own group's battles with the mayor's office over its stadium stance. "The litmus test is 'Do you support the Olympics?' If so, then you can do business with the city."

COMMENTS

It's a step in the right direction. But the table is still stacked in favor of the Jets since the Jets are backed by a $600 million corporate welfare payment, while the other bidders are not. Even with all the extra help ($600 million in corporate welfare, the massive tax breaks, ability to issue tax-free bonds) the Jets might STILL lose in open bidding. Hopefully, an outside bidder wins the whole thing, and the West Side stadium scam gets killed off.
Posted by: normaldude at February 15, 2005 10:55 PM

This bidding is a farce. The land is zoned for industrial uses and the current administration would never support a re-zoning, and the State would never override zoning without the City's consent. So, it would take either a regime change or a minor miracle for any bid other than the Jets to get selected.
Posted by: BobbyV at February 16, 2005 09:31 AM

The Regional Plan Association has actually begun making that very point (about the need for rezoning). It's not quite that cut-and-dried - the MTA can technically override local zoning if it wants, though it doesn't usually - but agreed that it will be tricky for other developers to make bids without getting zoning approvals. Though Cablevision made its $600M bid contingent on getting "the same zoning and density calculations" as the Jets, so it's conceivable other bidders could do the same.
Posted by: Neil at February 17, 2005 12:57 AM