June 28, 2005
Mets, Nets work the media
Today's lessons in How To Make Stadium Headlines When You Have No Real News:
- The New York Mets sparked dozens of newspaper stories by releasing a crude overhead sketch of their proposed $780 million stadium as it would appear in Olympic configuration.
- New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner announced a "community benefits agreement" with local community groups in Brooklyn that would: Guarantee that 50% of apartments in his planned Atlantic Yards project would be "affordable"; earmark set percentages of construction jobs for women and people of color; and guarantee 2,000 low-priced seats for all Nets games at his new $500 million arena. One problem: Almost none of these promises are new. Another: Ratner claims his agreement is based on the landmark Staples Center deal in Los Angeles, where developers negotiated guarantees with local community groups, but Bettina Damiani of Good Jobs New York, which advocates for community benefits agreements, says the two aren't comparable. "There's no labor that signed on to this, no environmental groups, nothing about parking," she says. "It's a good-faith effort, but the groups that signed on are too narrow to address all the community concerns with this project."
And as an example of the kind of good press you just can't buy: WCBS-TV reported (and I heard a similar report on WCBS-AM news radio) that Ratner will be "giving the Atlantic Yards community where he wants to build the new Nets Basketball stadium $3.5 billion in community improvements." $3.5 billion, of course, is the full price tag for Ratner's planned housing/office/basketball complex, not any associated "community improvements" - meaning this could mark the first time in history that a developer was credited with generosity for his own cost overruns.
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