November 25, 2009

State says Nets bond offering due next week (for real, they swear)

More news is filtering out about how the Atlantic Yards eminent domain ruling is likely to affect the long-stalled project, and the verdict — okay, my verdict, on the Village Voice website — is that the most important fallout is that bond rating agencies sound more likely to look favorably on arena bonds now that the most prominent lawsuit is out of the way. A bond offering could be issued as soon as next Wednesday, though Empire State Development Corporation spokesperson Warner Johnston couldn't give details of what interest rate the bonds would carry.

Arena opponents, meanwhile, are planning to keep up their court battle, but given that this was the only lawsuit remaining with the power to prevent the state from taking land for the project, it looks like an uphill battle to prevent a groundbreaking in the first few months of 2010. Barring such a crazy-high interest rate that developer Bruce Ratner gets sticker shock, it seems increasingly likely that Atlantic Yards will become a reality &mdash or at least that a Brooklyn Nets arena will, given that the associated housing towers have already been put on a schedule of "maybe someday, if ever."