Among the many bombshells in the Times story about the Atlantic Yards Stall on Good Friday, was the fact that the cost of the area has nearly doubled to just shy of $1 billion. No Land Grab lays out the interesting price history:
The price tag of Bruce Ratner’s controversial Brooklyn arena has been steadily rising since the project was first announced: starting at $435 million, tweaking upward to $555.3 million and then creeping up to $637.2 million when the project was officially approved. This week, Ratner gave no explanation to The NY Times when he divulged that the cost of the arena has ballooned to a whopping $950 million, more than twice the original projection and a figure suspiciously just shy of the magic $1 billion threshold. The cost of the arena has also mysteriously outpaced construction inflation in NYC, which is reported to be around 8%.
Is a $950 million single-sport arena financially viable? Stay tuned.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Peregrine // Mar 23, 2008 at 6:11 am
Read this article in the Daily News.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2008/03/23/2008-03-23_blight_at_the_end_of_the_tunnel.html
Called Blight at the End of the Tunnel.
“News that key parts of the Atlantic Yards project will be delayed is a disaster for my Brooklyn neighborhood – and a timely reminder of why New York’s middle class needs to get serious about fighting for jobs, housing and opportunity against the not-in-my-backyard activists bent on blocking development.
Too many civic, religious, labor and political leaders sat idly by over the past four years while those who objected to the landmark project resorted to a delay-at-all-costs strategy that included protests and lawsuits.
The project’s foes are taking a victory lap, but they should be ashamed of themselves. The casualties will be felt, especially in the lives of struggling Brooklynites.
Errol Louis is exactly right. Norman Odor AYR and DDDB have seriously hurt Brooklynites who need this project.
2 Anonymous // Mar 23, 2008 at 7:24 am
yeah, Errol Louis is exactly right, right in the way Dick Cheney was about the War on Iraq.
3 Gringcorp // Mar 23, 2008 at 8:41 am
The cost on its own is not the problem – remember that the New Meadowlands stadium cost north of $1.5 billion, and hosts a pitiful number of home games, as is the NFL’s wont. But Ratner is not only moving a franchise, but is a member of a much less disciplined league. In the NBA, for instance, the Dolans count as elder statesmen.
As for this Louis rant, its characteristic of the city’s political class and commentariat that they would not know a cost-benefit analysis when it slaps them in the face. It’s not difficult to create jobs with public money. The trick is to create good, sustainable jobs, without larding the immediate environment with significant negative externalities. Atlantic Yards is the most miserable and inefficient form of economic stimulus one could conceive.
4 Anonymous // Mar 23, 2008 at 10:35 am
I agree with the first poster. The NIMBYs won. They managed to delay thing for long enough with BS lawsuits to kill the project. Now we get to stare at a huge hole in the ground and those ugly crumbling rail tracks for another 20 years. Good job, guys.
5 Norman Oder // Mar 23, 2008 at 11:16 am
Jeez, you can’t even spell my name right.
http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2008/03/daily-news-columnists-louis-daly-lament.html