How much will NYCFC’s stadium cost taxpayers? Nobody bothered to find out before approving it

Back in late 2022 when plans were first announced for a new NYCFC stadium in the Willets Point section of Queens, I wrote an article for Hell Gate asking what city taxpayers would be on the hook for in property tax breaks, discounted public land, and infrastructure costs. Then I got busy for a while with other things, and before I knew it the stadium had been approved — and still nobody had any better idea of the public price tag.

I recently found the time to dig into the question of how a massive stadium project on public land got approved without a solid cost estimate, and the answer turns out to be: Nobody thought it was their job to find out.

When [local councilmember Francisco] Moya presented the stadium plan for a council vote on April 11—asking his fellow councilmembers to “picture a little boy in Flushing Meadows, Corona Park learning to play soccer with his father, a game that serves as a link to the life in a faraway country that his father left behind to make Queens his home”—his colleagues largely stayed silent. The only “no” vote ended up coming from Shekar Krishnan of Jackson Heights, who objected that the stadium was costing too much in tax breaks and discounted rent and would take up space that could be used for affordable housing: “A stadium on public land, subsidized by hundreds of millions in public funds, is not a good deal.”

The rest of the decisive council hearing was mostly free of opinions on the deal itself, leaving time for much good-natured ribbing. Republican Councilmember Joseph Borelli of Staten Island teased Moya that as his former State Assembly soccer teammate, “I can tell you bluntly that it wasn’t the lack of a stadium that kept you out of the pros.” [Councilmember Robert Holden] posed only one question: “What does it feel like, Francisco, to lasso a dream? Because that’s what you did today, you lassoed a dream. And I couldn’t be more proud of you.”

(Holden and fellow Queens councilmember Vickie Paladino did ask the city Independent Budget Office for an exhaustive report on city costs – but then when the IBO couldn’t produce one immediately, they voted for the stadium anyway.)

The stadium project also had to go before the local community board for a vote, but the board’s co-chair happily acknowledged shutting down questions on financing and environmental concerns, so long as Mayor Eric Adams put in motion a new police precinct as a quid pro quo:

“We made it clear: We need a precinct, we need a precinct, we need a precinct,” said [Community Board 7 co-chair Chuck] Apelian. “I said, ‘I am not going to lead my team to vote ‘yes’ if you do not take care of the rank and file of this community.’ It’s not many times you get an opportunity, and it’s not many times people listen. So we were at the point where the squeaky wheel got the oil.”

So how much will this end up costing taxpayers? We’ll have to await the release of that IBO report (due later this year) to get a better sense of that, but suffice to say the “hundreds of millions of dollars” in the headline is a safe bet. In the meantime, it’s worth noting that even New York’s months-long land use oversight process doesn’t always provide much oversight — if the people in positions of power don’t want to look, for fear of what they might see.