Field of Schemes
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July 12, 2004

Silver blitzes the end run

So much for the New York Jets getting a new stadium without legislative approval, as New York deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff had promised. State assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, who can effectively block any stadium legislation, has introduced his own bill that would fund a $1.4 billion expansion of the Javits Convention Center but not the accompanying stadium. The proposed Jets facility, insists Silver, must be considered separately, vowing that the assembly would not approve any stadium funding unless it first goes through the standard municipal oversight process (ULURP, for any city policy wonks reading this), including city council approval.

Meanwhile, the New York Times yesterday editorialized that it was "dubious about the stadium plan," calling for more public oversight (including just the sort of separation-of-stadium-and-convention-center plan that Silver proposed today) and concluding:

Using what it called an ''optimistic scenario'' - and without factoring in the possibility of tax-exempt financing - the city's Independent Budget Office found a Jets study on possible benefits from the stadium too rosy. It said that the project would create only about 3,600 jobs - half the number promised by the study - and generate $28.4 million annually in new city tax revenue, $6.7 million less than the team calculated. The mayor's office notes that the expected revenues in the report would still cover the annual debt service. But that assumes that the city can beat the historical odds when it comes to the generally dismal record of football stadiums' helping to draw large events and conventions.
That's a gamble, one that could prove awfully costly for the public.

While it's too soon to be talking about nails in coffins, the momentum certainly seems to be shifting on the West Side stadium plan. It'll be interesting to see how Doctoroff and the Jets respond to this latest move.

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