Hopes for building a football stadium on the far West Side of Manhattan may have ended yesterday after a top elected official said his appointee would vote against the project less than an hour before it came up before a state board for approval.
New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said his appointee to the states Public Authorities Control Board would vote against a proposal allowing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to sell about 13 acres of land on the far West Side to the New York Jets. The site is the proposed location of a $2.2 billion, 75,000 seat stadium the National Football League team wants to build and the centerpiece of the citys bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympic Games.
The question is, what do we address first, our moral obligation or our ambitions? Silver said in a statement. Am I supposed to sell out the community I have fought for and represented for more than a quarter of a century? Am I supposed to turn my back on Lower Manhattan as it struggles to recover?
In recent months Silver has linked the stadium proposal, along with plans to build 24 million square feet of office space in the area, to the ongoing problems encountered in rebuilding parts of his Lower Manhattan district following the terrorist attack on Sept. 11.
Developing the West Side and ignoring Lower Manhattan: that is what the PACB vote is really about, Silver said.
In a four-page statement released to the press, Silver said he was not opposed to redeveloping the far West Side, New York City hosting the Olympics, or the construction of a new stadium in the city.
However, Silver said the Olympic bid is being used a Trojan horse, with the goal of shifting the citys business and financial center out of Lower Manhattan and sending it to the West Side.
Before the meeting, Senate President Joseph Bruno, an upstate Republican, said his appointee to the PACB would offer an amendment that would have made construction of the stadium dependent on New York City hosting the 2012 games.
While Silver and Bruno have opposed the project, it has the strong backing of Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, both Republicans. Calls for comment to the offices of both Bloomberg and Pataki were not returned by press time. Officials for the Jets could not be reached for comment.
While Pataki appoints the PACBs five members, state law requires him to appoint four members based upon the recommendation of the majority and minority leaders of both houses of the Legislature. But, only the board members representing the governor, the Senate president, and the Assembly speaker can vote on projects brought to the board for approval.
The proposed stadium is an essential part of the Bloomberg administrations plan to redevelop the far West Side. As it was originally envisioned, the plan has three parts, each with its own financing, totaling at least $6.6 billion.
As part of its plan to pay for the stadium, the city and state each would have issued $300 million of bonds to pay for construction of the stadium.
Also yesterday, the International Olympic Committee released a report analyzing the bids of the five cities competing to host the 2012 games. The other cities are London, Paris, Madrid, and Moscow.
The IOC described its 126-page report as a fact-finding and technical study that tried to determine if the information included in each host cities application was accurate, if their proposals were feasible, and assess the risks of each plan. The report did not rank the cities plans or chances of hosting the 2012 games.
The IOC will announce its decision on who will host the games in Singapore early next month. According to several accounts, Paris and London are seen as the leading contenders to host the games. In its report, the IOC said of both cities, the candidature file and the information provided to the commission during its visit were of a very high quality. The IOC visited all five finalists.
The report makes clear that this race is neck and neck and that New York is firmly in the top tier. The IOC report has made crystal clear that were in a great position to win in Singapore on July 6, so long as the stadium is approved, said Daniel Doctoroff, founder of the citys Olympic host committee and the citys deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding.
Democratic Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, whose district includes the site of the proposed stadium, noted that the IOCs report said that the stadium is one of several facilities that have not been given the go ahead.
Singling out approval of the stadium as being the only key to our Olympic bid is nonsense, Gottfried said in a statement. Even if it were approved by the PACB, it would still need future approvals and changes in state law for it to be expanded to Olympic size.
