Sometimes reading a news story these days takes forensic levels of analysis to figure out what the hell is actually going on, and such is this case with this Fox Business article about how the eternally dragged out plan to build an NYC F.C. soccer stadium in place of a parking garage and city street and highway on-ramp near Yankee Stadium has … collapsed? Hit a snag? Here’s what it says:
An eleventh-hour dispute between bondholders, New York City and the New York Yankees appears to have doomed a long-anticipated, $1 billion project that would have resulted in the construction of a new professional soccer stadium, low-income housing and a broader redevelopment of one of the nation’s poorest neighborhoods, FOX Business has learned.
Okay, that’s some heavy editorializing going on in the lede already, and makes it pretty clear that Fox Business’s source is Yankees officials, even before team president Randy Levine’s bright red face turns up in it to complain that the city and bondholders are “refusing to do what they agreed to do in the bond offerings and in the terms sheets.”
Let’s back up a second to reacquaint ourselves with some of the players here. NYC F.C. is an MLS team that was Garbered into existence in 2013 in order for the league to rake in a then-record $100 million expansion fee, and never mind that it didn’t have a soccer-specific stadium to play in, which was otherwise then a requirement for new MLS teams. Its co-owners are Sheikh Mansour, the UAE-based owner of Manchester City, and the Yankees, who brought in at the last minute to bring some local muscle to the stadium quest in the form of Levine, who was a deputy mayor under Rudy Giuliani and subsequently went on to mastermind the Yanks’ own new-stadium deal, which netted the team owners more than a billion dollars in public subsidies.
The latest NYC F.C. stadium plan, after many many others, involved tearing down a parking garage that the Yankees no longer needed, but which the city had still promised to maintain as part of the Yanks’ lease to guarantee a set number of parking spaces near the baseball stadium. The garage is owned by the city, but leased to a nonprofit shell corporation called Bronx Parking Development Company LLC, which sold $237 million in bonds to finance still more parking garages, then immediately stopped paying back bondholders, because nobody was actually parking at the garages given how crazy overpriced they were. The bonds mostly ended up in the hands of a real estate investment company called Nuveen, who are the final players in today’s drama.
So what, exactly, has happened? The city and the Yankees have been working for years on a way to make the old 1970s-era garage go away so that a stadium can go up on the site, and Nuveen agreed in early June to restructure its bond payments to let the whole thing happen. And then … something:
Yankee officials say the city and bondholders have reneged on a key piece of the deal that has put the entire project on hold indefinitely and possibly forever. …
Levine added: “The deal broke down over the bondholders and the city refusing to do what they agreed to do in the bond offerings and in the terms sheets.”
A spokeswoman for New York City’s EDC said it was the Yankees who were backing out of promises made to get the deal done. She would not elaborate.
That really doesn’t tell us much, nor does Fox Business’s note that it has “reviewed” the term sheet without providing any specifics as to what it contains. Hey, remember when journalism was about more than just reprinting various sides’ press statements and then calling it a day? Go ask your parents about that one.
The takeaway, regardless of who exactly blew up what over what, is that the latest NYC F.C. stadium dream appears to have come to naught, or at least somebody involved wants you to think it’s come to naught in order to put pressure on someone across the table to back down so that redevelopment of one of the nation’s poorest neighborhoods already. Hopefully some other city news outlet that does actual reporting will follow up, but there are fewer and fewer of those these days, so I may have to take it into my own hands and make some calls.
NdM,
Completely amazes me that MLS teams in Austin, Cincinnati and Columbus can get stadium deals done/constructed, while NYCFC (with some of the wealthiest owners on the planet in one of the wealthiest city’s on the plantet)…CAN’T! You’d think by now NYCFC would have one of the crown jewels of MLS, yet here we are with your latest post and they’re still playing at Yankee Stadium. BTW, can see the A’s Howard Terminal fantasy going the same way as this NYCFC drama, and the A’s owners/City of Oakland are much “poorer” than their MLS/NYC counterparts on the East Coast.
It isn’t complicated. Land is expensive in the biggest cities, and local governments in those cities aren’t especially keen on using money to facilitate them the way smaller to mid-sized cities sadly do. The owners of NYCFC have the money to buy land, and get to rezoned to suit their needs, but what is the payoff? Why spend $0.5-1 billion on a stadium for a team that will increase revenue from a reported $45 million to maybe $60 million (if everything goes perfectly, which likely won’t happen)? It is a terrible return on the investment.
Actually, NYCFC is playing at Red Bull Arena. I honestly think there is a chance they might make this permanent. Or at least continue to split the games.
https://www.onceametro.com/2021/3/25/22349687/red-bull-arena-to-host-local-touring-side-during-2021-season-new-york-city-fc-nycfc
It makes the most sense, Junior. RBA is a fine facility and can certainly accommodate another club. NYCFC is certainly going to “want” to be NY’s only professional club playing the city, but clearly not enough to pay for that privilege.
There’s enough money in that ownership group to get anything built essentially anywhere they want to build it.
RBNY paid for their own facility, why should NYCFC be any different?
And if they really don’t want to do that, maybe they can call up Hofstra or go Cosmos and head off to Randall’s Island… oops too late….
https://randallsisland.org/visit/icahn-stadium/
Unless they are willing to ground share with the NY Lizards of the MLL. So, maybe?
MLL is no more. Long live the PLL.
The PLL operates, as of now, with a touring model. Rather than deal with low attendance and high operating costs for one team in a market, they have the whole league in a city to play a week, where interest would be higher.
Though, only the former Boston Cannons have been absorbed. It’s unknown if the PLL will use any of the other franchises they acquired or not.
Funnily, they could have taken advantage of the annual July 4th weekend game at Mile High, but don’t want to take the financial risks.
Doesn’t King Garber require franchises to have a downtown specific soccer stadium. Oh wait, that rule only applies (if I, King Garber want it to apply. It doesn’t apply to Atlanta, Chicago, Colorado, Dallas, New England, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver and sometimes Montreal. And who really knows what applies to David Beckham and Miami) in special circumstances.
NY Red Bull Arena must mean downtown Harrison, New Jersey. All stop. Well, at least as far as the MTA is concerned. You can always find another PATH. Maybe I’ll just catch the NYC LOOP!
Soccer-specific.
Maybe NYCFC needs to move to Greensboro.
Oakland Roots might be willing to donate the former NY Cosmos playing surface, if that helps in anyway.
https://www.indomitablecitysoccer.com/2021/6/20/22542058/why-was-oakland-roots-first-usl-home-game-postponed
That used to be the Rayo OKC playing turf.
That’s the field that will never die.
Who reaps the reaper …..
https://www.georgetakei.com/morbid-people-admit-what-theyd-ask-the-grim-reaper-if-they-ever-met-him-2640776621/self-care-is-vital
Word on the street is that NYCFC is talking about moving to Highmark Stadium in Buffalo after the Bills move to North Carolina.
Leaving aside how crazy $237 million in bonds for parking garages is, the bond holders are still waiting to get paid from the last stadium scam. Are they supposed to give up their rights just so that billionaires can get another stadium built with other people’s money?
No public subsides in this deal. NYCFC and Yankees were going to pay the stadium fully.
For the stadium construction costs, yes. We still don’t know whether they or their partners would be getting land or tax breaks, though:
https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2018/07/12/13924/nycfc-returns-to-old-bronx-stadium-site-with-new-rube-goldberg-funding-plan/
This passage of the Fox Business article made the crux of the dispute clear:
“ But the Yankees say last week the deal was upended when the city’s EDC – the lead city agency handling the deal – and Nuveen balked at a parking space guarantee even at the reduced numbers that the Yankees wanted in the official contracts of the redevelopment.
Both are said to fear that such specific guarantees could open the entities to future litigation and that specific “third-party beneficiary rights” were never part of any deal. Yankees officials counter that all they were doing was codifying guarantees in the earlier agreement, and in the term sheet, albeit at a lower number of spaces.”
Looks like the Yanks are pulling out because they don’t trust Nuveen and the city to create 5k new parking spaces somewhere in or around the proposed soccer stadium development.
Go. To Queens watch Queens boro: FC
My FOIL on QFC’s stadium lease is now overdue, speaking of.
The Yankees don’t trust their business partners?? Oh the irony….
Move just over the Bronx boarder to the trotters in Yonkers. It’s attached to a casino and next to the numerous Irish bars on McClean Avenue. Fans can March to games with drums like in Portland. Near trains and lots of parking. Close enough to still be NYCFC
Ah…my old stomping grounds. The only things I miss about Yonkers are those McClean Ave bars, Nathan’s & a long gone disgusting rock club called the Rising Sun (aka Rising Scum) across the street from the raceway. Good times!
That said, your idea is an interesting one. I forgot they now have a casino on property & its a pretty convienant area to travel to/from. That area could use a shot in the arm as well. As always.
For added context from a week ago the day after this all occurred: https://theoutfield.substack.com/p/damn-yankees-nycfc-stadium-partners
“A spokeswoman for New York City’s EDC said it was the Yankees who were backing out of promises made to get the deal done. She would not elaborate.
That really doesn’t tell us much, nor does Fox Business’s note that it has “reviewed” the term sheet without providing any specifics as to what it contains. Hey, remember when journalism was about more than just reprinting various sides’ press statements and then calling it a day?”
If you read the article I posted above from The Outfield, you will see the specifics of what the Yankees were changing at the last minute and see details about them forcing the community board to initially vote on the measure in June or they threatened they would pull out of the deal.
Additionally, we have reviewed the term sheet and certain specifics are included in the article at The Outfield as well as I have posted on Twitter.
Feel free to read up on it from someone who hasn’t missed a Bronx CB4 board meeting since April 2019, attended last Tuesday to hear the community board members’ responses, and listen in on direct conversations between the EDC, board members, and Maddd Equities: https://theoutfield.substack.com/p/damn-yankees-nycfc-stadium-partners
All journalism isn’t quite dead though I do agree that the recent tweets from the NYT and the article from Fox Business widely miss the point and leave out crucial facts and context.
Chris, can you share the term sheet?
I can Neil, send me an email address that I can reach you at and I can send that your way.
Read the Fox Business article, Chris. Gasparino makes it clear that guaranteed parking spaces are the crux of the dispute. And he does it without the offputting bias present in most of today’s “journalism”.
I did read it. The term sheet clarified the number of spots that would remain available for Yankee game-day parking. The Yankees and Maddd Equities put that term sheet together themselves so not sure why they wouldn’t include all the necessary spots there. EDC noted several times during last week’s board meeting that the issue here was the clarification and inclusion in legal documentation on the number of parking spots that were considered as “attended” vs “unattended”. The Yankees didn’t provide anyone at the meeting to discuss.