IBO: New Soccer Stadium Deal Bails Out Failed Parking Lots, Boots Money Owed to City for Decades

Parking garages on 153rd St. and River Ave. near Yankee Stadium could be converted into space for a new Major League Soccer stadium.   The Parks Department owned garage on E. 153rd Street & River Avenue is the proposed site of a $ 350 million, 28,000 seat soccer stadium that is located 80 feet away from residents.   (Photo: Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Advocates) 

The Yankees demanded the city create a 9,500-space garage system as part of their new stadium project, a deal that the Economic Development Corporation knew was not going to be financially viable.

Bronx

The deal now taking shape to score a new soccer stadium in the Bronx would bail out the bondholders of the failed Bronx Parking Development Company. But it would shut out the city from receiving any of the rent or other payments it is owed for the parking sites until 2056, according to the Independent Budget Office. 

The Bronx Parking Development Company runs the system of 9,300 parking spaces in a number of lots and garages built at the behest of the Yankees as part of the deal for the new Yankee Stadium. To pave the way for the lots and garages scattered near the stadium, the city leased about 20 acres of land—including 3 acres of parkland—to the parking company, provided a $39 million direct subsidy (the state kicked in an additional $70 million), and issued $238 million in tax-exempt bonds.

The parking spots have been underutilized because of good mass transit options for getting to the ballpark and overpriced compared with nearby parking alternatives. As a result, the Bronx parking company has effectively defaulted on its bonds and failed to make any of the $3.2 million in annual rent as well as payments in lieu of taxes it owes the city since leasing the land in 2008. In need of new revenue, the company issued a request for proposals last spring to sublease and redevelop two of the sites near Yankee Stadium. Now a deal for a new soccer stadium has emerged, with a portion of the proposed 10-acre stadium site incorporating a third site leased to Bronx parking.

The New York City Football Club, a partnership of the Yankees and the Manchester City Football Club (a British Premiere League team), would pay the Bronx Parking Development Company $25 million for its part of the proposed stadium site. Under the terms of the so-called forbearance agreement between bondholders and the Bronx parking company, three new series of bonds would be issued to replace the originals as part of the restructuring of the company’s debt. No provisions are made for money owed to the city.

The lease the city signed with the Bronx parking company anticipated that revenue could fall short of needs and made debts to the city secondary to those of bondholders. The terms of the new bonds presume the city will get nothing for more than 40 years. All revenue received by Bronx parking, from the proposed soccer site as well as the parking company’s other sites, would go to bondholders. Two of the three series of new bonds would not reach maturity until 2056, meaning the city would not begin receiving lease or other payments from Bronx parking until then—foregoing about $150 million in lease revenue alone.

Even as the city would be giving up this revenue, published reports indicate taxpayers are being asked for more to support the construction of the proposed $350 million, 28,000-seat soccer stadium: tax breaks, additional public land, and more tax-exempt financing issued by the city’s Industrial Development Agency.

Whether or not the soccer stadium gets built as currently proposed, it may be decades before the city’s initial subsidy of the parking system delivers any of the expected returns to New Yorkers.

Read More:

New Soccer Stadium Deal Bails Out Failed Parking Lots, Boots

 Money Owed to City for Decades

IBO Web Blog - January 6, 2014 - By Doug Turetsky 

Be Our Guest: The Yankees' deal for a soccer stadium would use 

taxpayer money and pave over parkland   

A proposal to convert underutilized and subsidized parking spaces at Yankee Stadium into a soccer stadium is a costly mistake

New York Daily News - December 29, 2013 - By Bettina Damiani and Veronica Vanterpool

NY Yankees Looking to Seize More Bronx Parkland To Build Major League Soccer Stadium
A Walk In The Park - December 11, 2013 - By Geoffrey Croft

Gowanus Canal Clean-up Estimated btw. $467 - $504 Mil. - City's Share Growing- IBO

The Gowanus Canal.  In March 2010 the federal Environmental Protection Agency declared the 1.8 mile Gowanus Canal a Superfund site, a designation the Bloomberg administration vigorously opposed.  

The EPA set about developing a plan to contain the hazardous materials in the canal’s sediment and to prevent recontamination. Part of the Superfund process also includes determining who’s responsible for creating the environmental mess and making those responsible pay the cost of alleviating the conditions.   Photo: Flikr/Doug Turetsky

As of this month the EPA has sent notices of potential liability to thirty-one companies, and several governmental entities including New York City, the US Navy, the US Postal Service, the US General Services Administration, the US Maritime Administration and the former owner of a company.  The companies included Consolidated Edison, Mobil Oil Corp, Citigroup, Verizon, ConocoPhillips Co, Chemtura Corp, Cibro Petroleum Products.

In December 2010 a EPA judicial bankruptcy deal approved a $3.9 million settlement 
with Argus Chemical Co., Witco Chemical Co., Crompton Corp.)  


Brooklyn

For decades, the Gowanus Canal has been synonymous with a polluted, and sometimes stinking, body of water. Soon after the Gowanus opened in the 1860s, it was generally treated as an open sewer. Industrial waste from coal yards, refineries, and tanneries as well as raw sewage poured into the canal. This fetid stew contained hazardous substances such as PCBs and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, pesticides, and heavy metals such as mercury, copper, and lead.

Fast forward to March 2010 when the federal Environmental Protection Agency declared the 1.8 mile Gowanus Canal a Superfund site and set about developing a plan to contain the hazardous materials in the canal’s sediment and to prevent recontamination. Part of the Superfund process also includes determining who’s responsible for creating the environmental mess and making those responsible pay the cost of alleviating the conditions.

The EPA is still determining who is responsible and the degree of their culpability. Some of the companies being investigated may not be surprising, such as National Grid and Consolidated Edison. But based on the agency’s review so far and the remedies proposed in a plan released late last month, one of the entities on the hook for footing the cleanup bill may be the city itself.

The federal environmental agency estimates that its preferred plan (there are also some alternatives) would cost in the range of $467 million to $504 million. New York City’s share of that cost could be substantial, according to The Independent Budget Office (IBO).

For years, the city has allowed sewage and stormwater to spew into the canal. Looking just at the period from 1952 until the Red Hook Wastewater Pollution Control Plant opened in 1987, the city dumped about 20 million gallons of sewage a day into the Gowanus. The Red Hook plant and the nearby Owl’s Head wastewater plant still send sewage and stormwater into the canal when there’s an appreciable amount of rain and the two plants exceed their capacity for treating the wastewater. In a September 2011presentation, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection estimated that about 300 million gallons of stormwater and sewage drained into the canal in a typical year, about two-thirds of it untreated sewage.

To reduce the continued contamination of the canal from what are called combined sewer overflows, or CSOs, the EPA wants the city to build holding tanks that will store the wastewater until the two treatment plants have sufficient capacity to handle much of the excess. The EPA estimates the cost of the tanks to be about $78 million.

A general reading of the EPA’s proposed cleanup plan and some other documents gives the impression that the city’s share could include more than the cost of the tanks as the federal agency sorts out who is responsible for various aspects of the canal’s pollution. Much of the heavy industrial uses along the canal ended long ago. National Grid owns the three sites where plants produced manufactured gas from coal, oil, and water to be used for street lights and home heating. These plants appear to be a significant source of the canal’s past pollution and may lead the utility to also bear a heavy share of the remediation costs. But the EPA’s extensive discussion of the role of CSOs in the canal’s past and future may be indicative of the extent to which federal officials believe the city should be underwriting the cleanup.

Any spending due to the Superfund plan comes on top of substantial sums the city has already been investing to improve the water quality of the Gowanus and reduce CSOs. Based on a review of capital budget spending by IBO environmental analyst Justin Bland, over the past 12 years the city has invested nearly $160 million to repair and upgrade a flushing tunnel that helps oxygenate the canal’s relatively stagnate water and an additional $18 million on other Gowanus cleanup-related environmental projects. The city plans to commit an additional $51 million for these projects over the next four years.

The Bloomberg Administration strenuously opposed the federal Superfund designation and developed its own plan for restoring the Gowanus. The Mayor argued that the Superfund designation could cause years of legal battles and delay redevelopment of the surrounding area. But City Hall’s plan relied in part on Congressional appropriations for the canal, funds that the EPA’s regional administrator considered far from certain. Insufficient funding could mean a lag in the cleanup.

The EPA is holding public meetings in Brooklyn on its plan on January 23 at PS 58 and January 24 at the Joseph Miccio Community Center. Written comments until March 28.

Read More:

Federal Plan for Cleanup of the Gowanus Canal May Mean Growing Costs for the City
IBO - January 23, 2013 - By Doug Turetsky

City Spends Just $ 4.7 Mil. In Parks Department Hurricane Sandy Overtime

City-Wide

Park workers remove a downed tree in Astoria Park in Queens. (Photos: Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Advocates) Click on images to enlarge.

By Geoffrey Croft

The New York City Independent Budget Office released overtime spending from 42 city agencies as a result of Hurricane Sandy and the Parks Department certainly isn't getting it's fair share.

From October 29 through December 24,  the city spent $ 151.1 million dollars.

"The assumption is that Washington will pick up most if not all these costs," said IBO spokesman Doug Turetsky.

While much of damage occurred on Parks Department owned property -   including boardwalk and shorefront, tens of thousands of downed and damaged trees -  the city allocated just $ 4.7 million dollars in overtime for the agency which is responsible for 14 % of the city's land.  

The agency was responsible for removing destroyed park features including benches and fencing,  clearing out miles of sand, inspecting parks, as well as securing parks and playground during and after the storm.  

Forestry,  maintenance and Park Enforcement were among the titles that received overtime.


A park employee in Pelham Bay Park clears another downed tree.

While parks workers did a Herculean job with the extremely limited resources they were given including personnel and equipment the lack of resources helps explain the agency's slow response that many people experienced including having dozens of parks and playgrounds closed for weeks. 

The City's increasing reliance on volunteers and welfare recipients coupled with its refusal to hire skilled workers also impacted the response.

Park workers also reported being hurt responding to storm conditions including an APSW in Staten Island who was struck by a fallen branch.

December 15, 2012. Mountains of sand were pushed over the Boardwalk in Brighton Beach starting at Beach Walk & extending past Ocean Pkwy. The sand is smothering the plantings where the ground slopes from the boardwalk down to the street. The Parks Dept. is removing it by hand. 

Multiple contractors hired by the Central Park Conservancy to go work. 

Queensboro Oval Park Ballfield /Tennis Privatization Fight Heats Up - Again

Upscale Tennis Land grab Rears Its Ugly Head Again.

SHUT OUT- ACCESS DENIED. Jonah and Aidan Keller stand outside the Sutton East Tennis Club, which normally would vacate their local park under the Queensboro Bridge in April. (Photo: J.C. RICE)

“I hate it,” said Jonah Keller, 9, whose twin brother, Aidan, won’t have access to the Queensboro Oval tucked under the 59th Street Bridge until the end of June, after the owner of the Sutton East Tennis Club dismantles the massive bubble that covers the entire acre-and-a-quarter field.

“There’s nowhere else where we can hit a ball, because you can hit it hard and there’s a backstop,” Aidan told the NY Post. “We love to ride our bikes there because it’s safe. If I fall, I fall on soft red clay.”

Manhattan

By Geoffrey Croft

Irate ballfield users and Community Board 8 members experienced Deja Vu this week when they were informed by the Parks Department that the agency had granted the city's most expensive tennis concession on public parkland additional time.

Ballfield permit holders who use the popular park under the 59th Street bridge in Manhattan had been kept in the dark as to why they hadn't yet received their permits. Now they know why. Tony Scolnick's Sutton Place Tennis Club was granted an additional six weeks to run his private tennis concession club in yet another behind closed door deal orchestrated by the Parks Department's revenue division.

The Parks Department said the agreement was already "signed and in effect."

Overstaying Its welcome. Deja Vu All Over Again In Queensboro Oval Park Tennis Privatization Fight. Queensboro Oval softball field under the 59th Street Bridge at York Avenue. The Sutton Place Tennis Club concession charges the highest price of any tennis concession on NYC park land - up to $ 195 per hour. Without notifying the community, once again, the Bloomberg administration struck a deal to allow the private tennis club to extend its season whereby displacing park users in a community has the least amount of park and open space in the entire city. (Photo: Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Advocates)

Queensboro Oval Park Ballfield (Image: Google.)

Questions were raised once again why the community was only finding out about this deal now, when since at least December 2011 Sutton East Tennis Club has been advertising tennis through June 14th, long after the ballfields are supposed to be available to the public.

This lack of transparency is particularly inflammatory considering the last time the issue of the extending the tennis concession surfaced in 2010 was when the agency's revenue division struck a behind closed door deal to allow the private tennis club on public park to go from seasonal to year-round. The Community Board vote came five months after the concessionaire had already signed a contract with Parks. Opponents of the plan charge they had not been properly notified of the proposal.

Sources told A Walk In The Park that Tony Scolnick/Sutton East Tennis Club had threatened to sue the City/Parks over the cancellation of this contract.

After the Community Board vote in 2010, Tony Scolnick, the director of Sutton East Tennis, told the New York Times, “We do feel that we have an enforceable contract.” He also repeatedly said that to me as well.

Since signing the contract, Mr. Scolnick told the New York Times, in 2010 he had obtained a $300, 000 loan to equip the site with air-conditioning.

According to Betsy Smith, head of revenue and marketing for the Parks Department and Mayor Bloomberg family friend, the reason for the extension was because the concessioner made a "substantial investment" to convert the bubble to year-around.

In an April 6, 2012 email to Barbara Rudder, co-chair of the parks committee, Mr. Smith said this deal is a "fair and appropriate compromise" considering Scolnick's contract to extend his tennis concession to year-round play was cancelled in 2010. (Betsy's revenue division negotiated the deal) The plan was defeated after community outrage. Community Board 8 voted 35 to 2, with two abstentions to reject it.

"This, Barbara, seemed a fair and appropriate compromise given the legitimacy of the concessionaire's position, and the legality and appropriateness of the agency's original decision," Ms. Smith wrote.

In a follow up statement on Friday, Ms. Smith said by the time Parks decided not to move ahead with the plan, "the Sutton Avenue Tennis Club had already made a substantial investment to convert the bubble to a year-round operation based on the execution of the contract amendment and its registration by the Comptroller. It was therefore prudent to address the legitimate concerns raised by the concessionaire, and we reached an agreement with them to extend the indoor season by six weeks."

Ms. Smith did not provide any details or proof of any investments made. A copy of the Sutton East Tennis Club six week extension agreement was not made available at the community board meeting. When asked for a copy the Parks press office said to FOIL for that information, a common delay tacit used by the administration.

When repeatedly asked to provide a breakdown of any investments and/or any related costs alleged by Scolnick, the Parks Department's press office refused to respond. Messages left for Mr. Scolnick at Sutton East Tennis Club were not returned.

The Parks Department was also asked when the contract was signed, how much in projected revenue the city/Sutton East Tennis Club stood to gain from extension, whether the extension for only for one season and would the six weeks be given back for ballfield use in the Fall as the community board is requesting. We also asked them to comment on whether Tony Scolnick/Sutton East Tennis Club had threatened to sue the city/DPR over this issue and if the agency had any such discussions.

The press office refused to respond.

"From the point of view of the Community Board we hoped that our conversation that our responsiveness to your concerns would be seen as a positive compromise to address competing interests over the use of this parkland, " Mr. Smith wrote to Ms. Rudder.

Apparently not. On Wednesday evening the Community Board firmly condemned this latest action. They

reaffirmed their strong resolution passed two years ago and added language in a new one that requires the seized time be restored in the Fall.

Ms. Rudder said her proudest moment as a board member came, "miraculously" when the board nearly unanimously voted down the original extension agreement.

The agency sent Park District manager Mark Vaccaro to face the angry crowd.

"I can only give a little bit of information," he began.

"My understanding is that the changes that were made in the contract with the tennis bubble were done through our revenue and legal department, not our permit department," he said.

"Legal and revenue I understand worked out a new contract that was six weeks longer with the tennis bubble."

He said it was above his "pay grade" to know what that involved.

Vaccaro said there are a limited number of ballfields but a huge number of permits. He said there were a number of existing permit holders that lost slots but they have been offered different times at different fields.

"Yeah in Siberia," an irate permit holder interrupted.

Al Morales who's has been playing there for thirty years, said he was offered a permit in Inwood Hill Park in at the tip of Manhattan on the Westside.

Mr. Vaccaro focused on the permitted league play but ignored the loss of open space issues and did not address the numerous non-permitted activities that occur in the park.

He could answer any financial or legal questions.

Joe Namath slugs softballs under 59th Street Bridge in 1969 wearing stylish pants. (Photo:Garrett/NY Daily News)

A dozen members of the public spoke passionately against the extension, including three members of the Bondy family. An elderly woman who said she played tennis there was the only person to spoke in favor of the extension.

"Revenue controls the tennis bubbles," Mr. Vaccaro responded when a number of the audience asked why the bubble was being allowed to stay up. "I don't know why they did it, as I said it's not what I do."

After applying for permits in January as he normally does, long-time ballfield user Bradley Cohen became concerned and suspicious that he and others had not heard back from the Parks Department Permit Office months later. He decided to pay the permit office a personal visit where he was told permits were being delayed.

On March 22, Bradley Cohen wrote to Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe but he said he never received a response.

"I do not know why this is suddenly an 'issue' again. I see this as another attempt by the tennis concessionaire to monopolize this field," Mr. Cohen wrote.

"They already have 8 months out of the year and now want to take away from the 4 months that we have left to play softball., Additionally, the fact that we were not notified of this delay until now (and only because I personally went down to the DOP office) is also a concern."

Ballplayers also bitterly complained that the city long ago allowed the fields to deteriorate. They also said dedicated maintenance mitigation funds from a nearby building were not allocated there.

Many asked where the money was.

For over 40 years, The Queensboro Oval Field, located along York Avenue under the 59th Street Bridge in Manhattan, has been a home to baseball, softball, soccer, football, schools, leagues, families, joggers, and children learning to ride bikes and pick-up recreation activities in a beloved public park. It has been and continues to be a vital resource for countless people. It is the only publicly accessible lit, non-asphalt field available for miles. Even though this community has the least amount of park and open space in the entire city, Mayor Bloomberg and Betsy Smith are attempting to displace children and the community by taking away this park.

Critics of the plan say what began with a 'for profit' tennis club enclosing the park in a bubble for 6 months of the year has morphed over the years to the community losing more and more time as private tennis group has slowly encroached on this community’s public space. The large tennis bubble eventually expanded to 8 months without community consultation or approval.

In an apparent attempt to deflect strong criticism that the community was unaware of the Parks Department's original deal in 2010, Mr. Smith pointed out that they had notified the community board twice of their plans to go to the Franchises and Concession Review Committee (FCRC ).

"no one from the community attended," she wrote.

Her comments are also meant to infer that the public could have somehow influenced the outcome of the obscure mayoral appointed FCRC committee.

Instead of first making a presentation to the community board to gauge interest they instead negotiate and finalized the behind close door deal with the concessionaire and then notified the Board when they were presenting before an obscure - to the general public - mayoral controlled committee. The general public was not made aware of any extension until after the contract had already been signed, some five months after the November 9, 2009 FCRC hearing.

Apparently this is also what they meant by a "fair resolution."

Manhattan Parks Commissioner William Castro publicly stated on several occasions in 2010 that the city would listen to the community in making its determination.

"It's in your face arrogance," CB 8 board member said afterwards. "The city does not have to abide by our feelings."

As justification for the land grab City officials have desperately tried to portray the ballfields as "vasly underutilzed," an assertion that is strongly dismissed by park users.

Preservationists also complain that the unsightly tennis bubble detracts from the landmarked bridge. The National Register of Historic Places added the Queensboro Bridge, also known as the 59th Street Bridge, to the list of City landmarks in 1978.

Parks As Cash Cows

The Bloomberg Administration is increasingly relying on these Parks Department revenue deals to help make up short falls in the city's general budget, while, it should be noted, they continure to allocate a fraction of the funds the agency needs to maintain the parks. The Parks Department is responsible for 91% of all concession revenue collected from city agencies according to the City Comptroller.

According to the City's Independent Budget Office, in November 2011, the Bloomberg Administration introduced another initiative for the parks department to generate $13 million in revenue annually beginning in 2013. Although lacking in specifics, the proposal to generate $13 million in annual revenue is relatively ambitious IBO writes.

Currently, the parks department is responsible for collecting $72.6 million from concessions, fees, permits, and fines (called miscellaneous city revenue). The new proposal would be a 17.9 percent increase over the department’s revenue for 2012.

A proposal to generate $2 million a year from an indoor tennis center at Central Park, introduced at the same time, was also abandoned in November 2010 after public outcry.

No city agency or private group should be allowed to unilaterally make land use significant land use decisions without community participation and consultation. Communities must have meaningful input regarding public lands. Judges have repeated ruled that significant land use designs must go through the proper reviews.

Read More:

Bubble trouble for kids at play

New York Post - April 15, 2012 - By Cynthia R. Fagen

Upscale Tennis Center Serves Up Rematch in Fight Over Use of Park

DNAinfo - April 13, 2012 By Amy Zimmer

Community Board 8 Rejects Year Round Tennis Concession

A Walk In The Park - March 18, 2010 - By Geoffrey Croft

Upper East Side Land Grab As Parks' Looks to Sell Ballfield to Tennis Concessionaire

A Walk In The Park - February 17, 2010 - By Geoffrey Croft