Leaving aside Ratner's math (his own economist, Andrew Zimbalist, has estimated only $5.5 million a year in player income taxes, and others have suggested that good accountants could reduce that bill even further), this would be a remarkable change of course for the developer, who as recently as two weeks ago was still talking about asking for $28 million a year in tax rebates, enabling him to finance virtually all of his planned $500 million arena. Cutting that to $12 million a year or less would make it a far better deal for the city, but would also leave Ratner with a $300 million financing hole. We should find out more about this on May 4, when the city council has scheduled a hearing on Ratner's plan - stay tuned.

April 22, 2004

Samson: No, this time, really

All those of you who had May 6 in the "When will the next Florida Marlins 'final' stadium deadline be?" poll, collect your winnings. Marlins President David Samson said yesterday that he's extending his May 1 deadline for five days so that Miami commissioners can vote on a plan for a $325 million retractable-roofed stadium near the Orange Bowl. Samson also said he intends to submit a stadium plan to the state legislature before its annual session ends at the end of next week, despite the fact that legislative leaders have said in no uncertain terms that the Marlins ain't getting that $60 million in sales-tax rebates they're asking for.

The Marlins have other problems as well: the $325 million estimate has been criticized for being too low (other retractable-roof stadiums have ranged from the $266 million to $517 million), and even with the state subsidy, the team would still be $55 million short of their goal. But at least they can always count on the Phillies' bullpen.

April 21, 2004

We want our Twins TV!

The strangest things affect elected officials' decisions on whether to subsidize sports stadiums: Minnesota legislators are reporting being bombarded by calls from constituents angered by the Twins' lack of a deal with local cable and satellite TV carriers, which has made telecasts largely unavailable to Twin Cities viewers. (The Twins have been demanding that cable operators pay them more than even the Yankees get in cable rights fees for their new premium channel.)

"It's been said to me more than once: 'Keep your powder dry on the stadium until they resolve the issue of putting them back on TV,'" says Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson. "I would expect the Twins want to cut the best deal, but I think it doesn't serve [stadium] negotiations well while this issue is still in the balance."

If we're Twins owner Carl Pohlad, we'd gladly cough up a few million dollars in TV rights fees for a shot at $300 million or so in public stadium subsidies. But then, no one's ever accused Pohlad of being able to think beyond the quick buck.

Hold everything, Cowboys

The Dallas Cowboys' planned $650 million stadium project at Fair Park, about $400 million of which would use tax money, has run into a roadblock: It may be against state law. A 1999 law prohibits the use of car rental taxes - and possibly also hotel taxes, the other revenue stream the Cowboys want to tap - in "an area or facility that is part of a municipal parks and recreation system." (No, we don't really understand why, either.) It looks like the team will now need to seek state legislative approval of its stadium plans, on top of a proposed November voter referendum in Dallas County.

April 20, 2004

No state money for Marlins this year

Looks like the Florida Marlins aren't going to make that May 1, ahem, "deadline": Florida House Speaker Johnnie Byrd has rejected the team's request for $60 million in tax rebates to help fund a new stadium, saying, "I've had a chance to learn a little bit more about the Marlins issue, and I don't believe that's an appropriate way to invest taxpayer dollars." Marlins execs haven't yet returned press calls, meaning we'll have to wait a bit to hear what biblical reference David Samson tosses out this time. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush did comment, though, noting that while he supports tax breaks for the Marlins, "I understand that they started late in the game and not all of their proposal is finite." That'd sure make for one weird-looking stadium.

Team-theft tax in Cali?

Now here's an idea: California state assemblywoman Christine Kehoe of San Diego is preparing to introduce a bill to require cities that pilfer pro sports teams from elsewhere in the state to pay monetary damages for lost revenues. It's unclear how the value of the damages would be decided upon, and it would only affect team relocations within the state (as in the much-rumored transfers of the San Diego Chargers to L.A. or the Oakland A's to the South Bay), and it's unclear just how serious Kehoe is in any case (she says of the bill, "It's a discussion worth having") - but the real question is: Would cities try to cite the substitution effect as a way to get out of paying fines?

Pittsburgh arena talks

Pittsburgh-area state legislators plan to meet Friday with representatives of a company that says it can build a $160 million arena for the Penguins using private funds. Notes the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "Still unclear about the SFMG proposal is how it would be financed, what role the company would have, how it would be paid, what revenues would go to the Penguins, and how much would be used to pay off debt."

Jets bonds to be tax-exempt

Bond Buyer reports that the quasi-public Empire State Development Corporation is in talks to use tax-exempt bonds to finance the planned $1.4 billion Manhattan stadium for the Jets. If true, this enables us to calculate the maximum lease payments the Jets would be making to their landlords, the public. Here's how it works:

Federal tax law requires that tax-exempt bonds can only be used for "private use" projects such as stadiums if no more than 10% of the bond cost is repaid by revenues from the project itself. (If this seems like a stupid requirement, it's because it was an attempt to close an earlier tax loophole that allowed overuse of tax-exempt bonds for for-profit projects. As reforms go, it didn't work too well.) If the entire $1.4 billion is bonded out by ESDC, annual bond payments would be on the order of $90 million a year. So ten percent of that - $9 million - would be the most the Jets could pay in rent without running afoul of the IRS.

Except for one thing: the Jets are also committing $800 million of their own money (some of it actually the NFL's money, but let that be for the moment) to the project, and that money would count against the 10% cap. So let's assume only the $600 million in public funds would get the tax-exempt treatment. That would mean, let's see, maybe $40 million a year in bond payments, leaving the Jets with a maximum rent of ... $4 million a year. This is the deal that Mayor Mike Bloomberg called "the best rental anybody has ever done in the history of the world."

There are other ways the Jets could kick in money - the Baltimore Ravens, for example, got around the 10% limit by paying stadium operating costs in lieu of rent. But given that the Jets have already indicated they won't share revenue from non-football events with the city, it's hard to see how the public would make back its $600 million investment.

April 18, 2004

Out of the mouths of Phanatics

The first Saturday game at the Philadelphia Phillies' new $458 million Citizens Bank Park, all dialogue guaranteed overheard:

• "Stadiums should be named after someone, or something. Not after who puts up the most money."
• "Ooh, grass!"
• "Boo, boo, boo, boo, the Expos suck!"
• "The air sure is thin up here, huh?"
• "We'll like this place better a year from now. It's a nice place, it's just not finished."
• "It kind of does feel like we're in a different city. Except everybody's wearing Phillies hats."

April 16, 2004

Steinbrenner to oppose D.C. team?

Nobody's ever accused Rocky Mountain News columnist Tracy Ringolsby of being the brightest bulb on the tree, but he does make a good point today, which is that Yankees owner George Steinbrenner could side with Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos in opposing a move of the Montreal Expos to D.C., for fear of the precedent it'd set should another team seek to horn in on the Yanks' territory by moving to New Jersey. With only eight teams needed to block a move, every vote will count, so this could marginally hurt D.C.'s chances - though not as much as MLB's continuing refusal to commit itself on the Expos' future until after stadium financing is approved, a stance that the league apparently reiterated yesterday, assuming we're reading it right.

Funny numbers, convention dept.

One of the more interesting moments at today's Regional Plan Association conference on New York's Hudson Yards plan came after Ken McAvoy of convention planners Reed Exhibitions said of the city's available convention space: "We are so far behind [in convention space] in New York, it's pathetic." The city's planned $1.4 billion expansion of the Javits Convention Center (and accompanying $1.4 billion "sports and exhibition center" that would host the Jets), insisted McAvoy, is necessary to compete with other cities that can accommodate larger conventions.

Not so fast, replied Harvard government professor Charles Euchner: "Don't overestimate the convention market," he warned, noting that when Boston set out to expand its convention center several years back, "there were many promises that are identical to those made here, about how many events it would bring." Instead, he said, for the center's first five years, "about eight events are booked, all for free" - the result of a nationwide boom in convention space while demand has remained flat. (Euchner's rebuttal got a huge round of applause from the crowd, notable in that it was mostly made up of business leaders and policy wonks who paid $150 apiece for the daylong conference.)

Earlier in the day, former Metropolitan Transportation Authority chief Richard Ravitch had warned that current MTA head Peter Kalikow was underestimating the value of the rail yards where the Jets stadium would be built. Ravitch implied the air rights to the yards could be worth $3 billion, which if true could send the total public subsidy for the project over $8 billion.

Cowboys would raze Cotton Bowl

The latest on the Dallas Cowboys' $650 million stadium plan: it would include a retractable roof (because who would want to play football outdoors in Texas in the winter?), a practice facility, corporate offices, a retail shop, banquet facilities and a hall-of-fame museum, and a public cost of at least $400 million. Most of the 72-year-old Cotton Bowl would be razed to make way for the new stadium, but, notes the Dallas Morning News, "The plan doesn't involve touching the swine barns, which are considered historical." Well, at least someone will be happy.

April 15, 2004

Boycott of one

Be afraid, Peter Angelos, be very afraid: D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams says he'll personally boycott Baltimore Orioles games until the nation's capital gets a major-league team, because - well, let's let the mayor's words speak for themselves: "We're tired of being dissed. You know, we go for the Olympics, we get dissed. We go for the Super Bowl, we get dissed. I'm tired of it. I'm really exasperated and frustrated. I don't go [to Orioles games], and I can understand why other citizens don't go. And if they don't go, I certainly understand and support them. But I'm not calling for a boycott, no."

Oops, wrong billionaire

The Florida State House will vote today on giving the Marlins a 30-year, $2 million a year tax rebate to help fund a new stadium. Even if the bill passes, however, the state senate is dead set against the stadium subsidy, in no small part because the state is already handing out $2 million a year - until the year 2023 - to former Marlins owner Wayne Huizenga, who spent $10 million of it on renovating Pro Player Stadium for baseball, and is now pocketing the surplus.

NYC poll: Olympics good, Nets okay, Jets enh

A new poll of New Yorkers finds that residents want the city to host the Olympics (77%), are slightly in favor of bringing the Nets to Brooklyn (54-40%), and slightly opposed to bringing the Jets to Manhattan (45-47%). The poll didn't ask about spending over $6 billion in tax money to achieve these goals; an earlier poll that did found very different results.

MLB: No Jersey Expos

MLB COO Bob DuPuy, in response to talk of New Jersey's Meadowlands sports complex hosting a big-league team, reiterated the league's stance regarding the Montreal Expos: "New Jersey is not on the list of candidates being considered." DuPuy didn't address whether other clubs would be allowed to consider New Jersey as a new home - if nothing else, the Twins and Marlins would no doubt love to use the threat as bargaining leverage in stadium talks with their home states - but there would be huge obstacles there in any case: as Doug Pappas points out in his weblog: "There's the little matter of indemnifying the Yankees and Mets for invading their territory. With Forbes estimating that these clubs are worth a combined $1.274 billion, fair indemnification payments would equal the cost of the stadium."

April 14, 2004

N.J. talks of luring MLB team

New Jersey sports chief George Zoffinger is again talking about bringing a major-league baseball team to the Meadowlands, but this time it's not the Mets or Yankees he's targeted. Zoffinger tells the Newark Star-Ledger he's had three discussions recently with Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, a member of baseball's relocation committee, on moving a third team to the New York metro area: "It's gone from something I didn't think was possible to something that actually could happen."

Don't hold your breath: While New Jersey is the one place that it might make sense for a team like the Florida Marlins to build a stadium with private dollars, just to get a crack at the New York media market, there's no way the Mets and Yankees owners would let a new team cannibalize their profits without a bloody fight. (And, of course, even having a share of the New York media market hasn't much helped certain other teams.)

White Sox renovations get one thumb up

Initial reviews of the Chicago White Sox' newly renovated U.S. Cellular Field is that, as Calvin Trillin's daughters would say, it's better than a carrot. Among the comments on the stadium's new look, which lopped off eight rows of seats from the back of the sky-high upper deck and added a small roof: "When you see something over your head, you feel more secure." "[It] looks better from the expressway." "It's [still] hard to see the pitches from up here." "It looks like old Comiskey." "I wish we had a dome." And from the Chicago Tribune's architecture critic: "It's a bit more intimate, a lot less sterile and certainly a more attractive urban presence to drivers on the Dan Ryan Expressway." (If you want to see what it looks like and don't drive on the Dan Ryan much, there's a photo gallery here.)

The redesign of what had been called Comiskey Park (not to be confused with the original Comiskey Park, which until its demolition in 1991 was baseball's oldest park) were financed by selling naming rights for $68 million, none of which money will go to the state of Illinois, which built and owns the structure.

April 13, 2004

Sox keep hedging on Fenway

Even as they continue to renovate Fenway Park (seats atop the right-field roof are the latest addition, following last year's wildly successful Green Monster seats), Boston Red Sox execs still aren't saying whether they've abandoned plans for a new stadium. "That fork in the road may be coming in the near future," says club COO Mike Dee. "Whether something like that can get done in Boston, who knows? The previous ownership had spent three years telling everyone that Fenway couldn't work. We've tried to increase [revenue] in a way that doesn't disrespect the natural habitat of Fenway."

Selig missing economist gene?

MLB factotum Bud Selig, in Philadelphia for the opening of the new $458 million Citizens Bank Park (half paid for by public funds), had this to say on the subject of public stadium financing: "I was raised in a family of economists, and I would argue the economics. At worst, a new ballpark is a break-even proposition." Bud's relatives must not include Johns Hopkins economists Bruce W. Hamilton and Peter Kahn, who found that the Baltimore Orioles' Camden Yards earns the state of Maryland $3 million a year in new revenues, while costing $14 million a year in construction debt. (This was in 1997, at the height of Camden Yards' popularity; attendance has since dropped dramatically, and along with it state revenues.) As Doug Pappas noted: "All told, each dollar of extra revenue from the ballpark costs Maryland taxpayers almost $5 - making Camden Yards one of the few investments worse than the lottery which financed it."

D.C. council to MLB: Put up or shut up

Washington, D.C. city council finance committee chair Jack Evans has reiterated the council's stance on funding a new stadium to bring the Montreal Expos to town: Give us the team first, then we'll talk. "I'm not going to go out there and bid against myself," said Evans. "That's the issue. I think if MLB commits to Washington, at the end of the day you'll get 11 of the 13 [council members] on board." It's unclear whether "on board" means writing a blank check for Mayor Anthony Williams' $340 million stadium proposal, or just willingness to sit down and negotiate; other council members have expressed qualms about the mayor's finance plan, which would combine a sales-tax TIF, a ticket surcharge, and the restoration of a tax on large downtown businesses that helped fund the Washington Wizards' MCI Center.

Ratner promises homes, jobs

Today's missive from the Bruce Ratner p.r. factory: the Brooklyn developer is promising to reserve 20% of the apartments in his "Atlantic Yards" housing-and-office-and-Nets-arena complex as "affordable" units, and another 30% as "middle-income," a move that the Daily News applauds "would go far beyond what is required by law." Well, sort of - reserving 20% of units as "affordable" is common among New York developers, who by doing so can access so-called "80/20" tax-exempt bonds and tax breaks. And as for those "middle-income" units, to meet the standard a one-bedroom apartment must be priced at less than $1395, and a two-bedroom less than $1810, which is well above market rent for that Prospect Heights neighborhood.

Meanwhile, New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser insists (without attribution of any kind) that Ratner's project would "create 10,000 jobs where none presently exist." Even taking Peyser at her word, this would hardly be a bargain: With $650 million in public dollars on the line, that would amount to $65,000 per job created, well over the $10,000/job baseline that development experts consider to be public money well spent.

April 12, 2004

News Analysis We Could Have Provided Ourselves Dept.

"Metro Matters" columnist Joyce Purnick, writing in today's New York Times:

"Now there are preliminary discussions with City Hall and Bronx officials about a plan based on the Giuliani idea - building a new stadium in Macombs Dam Park in the Bronx, on the north side of the team's current home.

"This, history suggests, may or may not happen."

Jets: "High rollers" would pay

New York Jets stadium czar Jay Cross tells the New York Times that his team's $800 million share of a Manhattan stadium would be paid for by "corporate buyers and high rollers," not "on the backs of taxpayers or loyal seat fans." (The city and state's $600 million share, that would come on the backs of taxpayers. See, it's all the fault of those rotten politicians!) Several sports finance experts expressed doubts that the Jets could pay off such a whopping stadium debt and still turn a profit without soaking fans, with consultant Dean Bonham saying that "to overcome a debt load of $800 million, when presumably you're still dealing with the debt from the purchase of the franchise, is an almost insurmountable obstacle."

San Juan promoter: Give me Expos, or give me somebody else

Promoter Antonio Munoz, the man behind the 22 "home" games the Montreal Expos are playing in Puerto Rico this year and last, has asking MLB to move the team to San Juan for 2005 on a trial basis. Munoz claims the city of San Juan is willing to either renovate the 20,000-seat Hiram Bithorn Stadium or build a new one if the Expos come to town, adding that if they later move elsewhere, he'd offer up the new park as a part-time home to other teams with attendance woes, mentioning the Florida Marlins, Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Pittsburgh Pirates as possibilities. The Pirates? Haven't they already got one?

Ratner hints at moving building

In his latest salvo in the news-leak war over his planned Brooklyn Nets arena, "sources close to" developer Bruce Ratner tell Newsday he may consider using giant rollers to move residences that are in the path of the development. Newsday notes that Ratner used a similar trick to relocate the Empire Theater off Times Square in 1998, but fails to observe that that building was merely slid from one end of a block to another on rails; buildings such as the old Spalding sporting-goods factory, now filled with high-priced loft co-ops, would have to be moved across a busy street and then rotated 90 degrees, or else co-op owners would walk out their front door into the middle of someone's backyard.

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April 10, 2004

D.C. council on stadium funds: Who, us?

As we were saying yesterday:

"Unless baseball makes a commitment to Washington, D.C., I am not spending another minute on this project. If they make a commitment to us, I'll build the stadium." -D.C. city council member Jack Evans on Mayor Anthony Williams' $340 million baseball stadium proposal

"We can't afford to lose any more businesses - period. And as companies are making decisions about coming to the area, these kinds of plans are a red flag." -D.C. city council member Kathy Patterson on Mayor Williams' plan to help pay for the stadium with increased city business taxes

Williams' plan would also use STIFs and a stadium ticket tax surcharge for financing. It's not quite dead in the water, but it's definitely going to need a bigger boat.

April 09, 2004

D.C. makes new stadium pitch

Washington Mayor Anthony Williams has put forth yet another stadium plan to lure the Montreal Expos to D.C., this one for a $340Ýmillion facility to be built in the RFK Stadium parking lot, entirely with public money. Williams' previous proposal was for a $436Ýmillion stadium nearer to downtown, about $125Ýmillion of which would have been paid for by the team's new owners.

That's not the reason MLB hasn't given the Expos to D.C., though, but rather because the city council says it won't approve stadium funds unless MLB blinks first. Unless that's changed, the stalemate will likely continue, despite the mayor's attempts to sweeten the pot with the council's money.

April 08, 2004

Uh-oh, pronoun trouble

The New York Daily News is having some trouble understanding the tax-increment financing behind Bruce Ratner's Brooklyn Nets arena plan, first reporting last week that it "would be paid for with mostly private funds" and then today asserting that "developer Bruce Ratner plans to spend more than $500 million on a new arena for the Brooklyn Nets, making it the most expensive home court in NBA history." In fact, Ratner would spend no money of his own on the arena, instead using $28 million a year in sales and income tax rebates to pay off the arena construction debt - all of which was explained in the Paper of Record two and a half months ago.

Vikings sales tax referendum likely

A survey of legislators in Minnesota's Anoka County, the only remaining bidder on building a new home for the Vikings, shows that 21 out of 24 oppose a 0.75% sales-tax hike for a stadium without a voter referendum. Since such a referendum would almost certainly fail, it's looking less and less likely that the Vikes will get their $500-million dream stadium anytime soon.

Paging Scrooge McDuck

Thanks to the inimitable Doug Pappas for pointing out this latest attempt to counter the substitution effect, from Drew Mihalic of the Oregon Sports Authority: "In Portland, I'd go as far to say we have people who are couch potatoes who all of a sudden have something to do. It won't be a transfer as much as it'll be people spending who didn't spend before." Mihalic, notes Pappas, apparently believes that "despite the recession that continues to grip the Pacific Northwest, many Portland residents have money burning a hole in their pockets that they're just waiting to spend on a baseball team."

NYC group: Stadium benefits overstated

A report by New York City's Regional Plan Association (PDF file available here) says other cities' experience with major stadium/convention center projects shows they're poor catalysts for commercial development - putting a dent in the arguments of Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, whose $5-billion-plus Hudson Yards plan would rely on property taxes from 28 million square feet of new office development to pay off its bonds.

Neither Seattle's downtown stadiums and convention center nor Baltimore's twin stadiums have sparked "significant commercial or residential growth," according to the RPA, while with Toronto's Skydome "the hope that the central business district would expand into this area never panned out." As for St. Louis' Edward Jones Dome, the prototype of a football/convention complex along the lines of New York's proposed Jets stadium, the RPA notes that while it "successfully creates the kind of synergy between the stadium and the convention center, the area around it is barren and deserted" on non-game days. The report concludes:

"When clustered together, stadiums and convention centers often make for a successful tourist corridor but as yet, they have not shown the ability to sponsor development of intensive mixed-use districts. There is little evidence of such facilities thriving in districts as dense as the one proposed for the Far West Side."

Promises at Petco

The San Diego Padres' new Petco Park (we're still waiting on the nation's sportscasters to agree on a nickname - the Dog Bowl? the Litter Box?) was approved by voters in 1998 after the team made many promises, only some of which have been carried out, according to a report by the Union Tribune. The team did spend over $150 million on the stadium itself (alongside $300 million in city funds), as promised, but stadium campaign promises of pricing between 10,000 to 20,000 tickets under $10 went nowhere. While the Padres told voters that 17,000 jobs would result from the project, team stadium honcho Charles Black now says "it is impossible to know" how many will be created.

And as for the 600,000 square feet of office space that was supposed to accompany the park, only a single 280,000-square-foot office building is in the works - though condo construction is booming in the district. Of course, it was booming before the stadium was built as well, which is why the city had to resort to eminent domain to clear out homeowners who were in the way of the planned redevelopment.

April 07, 2004

Bring the kiddies, bring the wife

Celebrating Opening Day, the baseball-owner way:

• "We need a new stadium. Everyone has to get this damn thing done in the next 30 days. Miami is a major city. They got it done in Seattle and San Diego and Cincinnati and Pittsburgh and Colorado and Philadelphia and Milwaukee. They all have new stadiums, and we're not going to consider ourselves a major-league city until we get it done." --World Champion Florida Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria
• "It's difficult when you see a decent crowd here and you see people waiting in long lines at the concessions, you see people not being able to get around, you see the traffic backed up, you see deferred maintenance just about everywhere you go. You'll see it tonight. It's an issue, especially with all the new parks opening up, that to stay competitive -- I'll say it now and I'll say it again -- we need a new park." --A.L. West champion Oakland A's owner Steve Schott
• "[Dodger Stadium] is a pretty special place. It's just over 40 years old now, but you'd never know. It's immaculately maintained. It has a special feel to it." --Los Angeles Dodgers G.M. Paul DePodesta, who evidently failed to get the memo

Dodger Stadium, incidentally, opened in 1962, four years before the Oakland Coliseum, and 25 years before Miami's Pro Player Stadium.

April 03, 2004

Vegas upping Expos bid?

If you believe the Las Vegas Sun, Sin City is making a serious push for the Montreal Expos, with investors lining up to buy the team and Caesars looking at building a $400 million stadium. We're skeptical - why would a casino want potential slots-pullers out watching a ballgame for three hours? - but combined with news that Portland's minor-league baseball team has just been taken over by the league, it's enough for us to tweak our Expos Relocation Odds (see right-hand column).

April 02, 2004

San Diego stadium cost nears half-billion

The final cost of the San Diego Padres' new Petco Park is in: $474 million, $63 million more than was originally proposed. Of that, the team is paying $173.2 million and public sources the remainder, but even that calculation is subject to interpretation: so-called "soft costs" of public financing are estimated to add another $74 million to the city's stadium expenses, while the Padres' "private" share includes $60 million in naming-rights fees on the publicly owned stadium.

Queens group plans stadium referendum

A group that would like a New York Jets/Olympic stadium built near Shea Stadium in Queens says it plans a petition drive to place a referendum on the November ballot on the city's proposed $5-billion-plus Hudson Yards plan. "We are talking with election law experts and we will stop this headlong bullying of this project down the throats of the cityís taxpayers," said Queens Olympic Committee president David Oats. "They want to rush this project through without a vote of either city or state legislatures or a vote by the people." It'll be interesting to see if Mayor Mike Bloomberg pulls out Rudy Giuliani's charter revision gambit to block a public vote.

In other city stadium juggernaut news, Metropolitan Transportation Authority president Peter Kalikow reiterated that he wants his agency "adequately compensated" for rights to 11 acres of railyards where Bruce Ratner's Nets arena would be built: "I fight tenaciously for the rights of the MTA and the values of their properties - and this will be no different." City subway riders certainly hope so: sale of air rights over railyards both in Brooklyn and on Manhattan's West Side could generate billions of dollars for the cash-strapped agency, which is considering raising fares to plug an anticipated $800 million deficit.

April 01, 2004

New Yorkers oppose tax money for stadiums

A Quinnipiac poll shows that 60% of New Yorkers oppose using tax money on a new Jets stadium, while 59% don't want tax money used for a new Nets basketball arena. Support for the Brooklyn plan jumps to 75% if no tax dollars are used, but given that the Nets plan would use $435 million in sales tax rebates and $150 million from the city's general fund, we're not even sure why they asked that question.

It's dead, Jeb

Plans for the state of Florida to provide $60 million in sales tax rebates toward a new Marlins stadium are "certainly dead for this year," State Senate President Jim King declared Tuesday. "It's too late in the game. It'd look like we're just pushing something through." Concurred House Majority Leader Marco Rubio: "If he says it's dead, if he's going to block it, it's dead." Marlins president David Samson, though, insists the team is sticking with its May 1 "deadline": "May 1 is so firm because it's all about '07. If you open a stadium in '08, it costs more money." Other quotes of note from the First Son-in-Law:

• "We hope in the Senate's wisdom that they realize there is a way to keep the Marlins in Florida."
• "It's now or never for the Florida Marlins."
• "Things just have a way of going to the final deadline. Didn't you ever do that with your term papers? You write them on the last night."

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