Read the article from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Decision made on stadium location

By David Wethe and Gordon Dickson
Star-Telegram Staff Writers


ARLINGTON - After a day of meetings on Friday, city officials and the Cowboys settled on the site for Arlington's largest-ever economic development project.

The $650 million Cowboys stadium will sit on about 30 acres that are closer to Randol Mill Road than to Division Street and are halfway between Collins Street and Johnson Creek, Mayor Robert Cluck said Friday evening.

"It turns out it's pretty much in the same area we've thought all along," Cluck said. "It's no surprise to me."

Specific details will be released to the public within a week, he said.

Starting Thursday, Pinnacle Consulting will begin meeting with landowners and residents who will have to move for the stadium, just a short walk from Ameriquest Field.

That same afternoon, the City Council plans to meet in a closed session to discuss the site.

"That's where the final determination will be made," Cluck said.

Additional land will be needed for the roughly 25,000 parking spaces, said City Attorney Jay Doegey. That land has not been identified.

The stadium plan became more focused Friday after a day of meetings at a law office in Dallas between city attorneys and Cowboys representatives.

That's where the two sides essentially came to an agreement, said Cluck, who received a full briefing after the meeting.

Arlington based its decision on the advice of its consultant, Turner Meis & Associates, whose founders have done design work for NFL stadiums in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Cincinnati.

Speculation about the site has captivated the city for the last eight months.

People directly in the path of the stadium footprint are expected to receive buyout letters next week, city officials have said. They will have 90 days to move once they receive notice from the city.

Homeowners are being offered an amount equal to the fair market value of their home, plus the cost of moving expenses and another $22,500 as an incentive to leave.

Renters will be paid $5,250 and moving expenses.

Business owners will be offered fair market value for their property, plus moving expenses and an additional $10,000.

With four years to go until the projected opening, several challenges remain, including designing the stadium, expanding roads and shoring up nearby Johnson Creek because of its flooding potential.

The selection of a stadium site makes it clearer where an estimated $733 million needs to be spent on road improvements.

Collins Street and other nearby roads must be able to accommodate another 12,000 vehicles one hour before kickoff.

Among the plans, according to area transportation officials:

Extend Baird Farm Road from Interstate 30 to Sanford Street _ cutting across the existing traffic circle north of Ameriquest Field. This would become the main gateway to the stadium for traffic exiting Interstate 30.

Extend Johnson Avenue from two to four lanes _ and make what today is a crumbling residential street into the western gateway.

Expand Collins Street to six lanes or, a possibly cheaper alternative, convert it to five reversible lanes on game days.

Build a toll lane in the I-30 median and give toll users a direct exit onto the stadium property.

Expand Division Street and Stadium Drive to six lanes, with the hope that the improvements will clean up the run-down area.

The neverending story about the West Side Jets stadium will keep going without a resolution for at least another month. - Transic

Read the article from the New York Times

Stadium Vote Delayed, 7 Weeks Before Olympic Decision

By CHARLES V. BAGLI
Published: May 18, 2005

Less than 24 hours before a crucial vote on the $2.2 billion stadium proposed for the West Side of Manhattan, Gov. George E. Pataki and two key legislators agreed last night that the matter would be postponed, probably until June.

The Public Authorities Control Board, a little-known state panel that can block the state's $300 million contribution to the stadium project, had been scheduled to vote today. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had said that a positive vote at this month's meeting was crucial to the city's chances of winning the 2012 Olympics and redeveloping the West Side.

The decision to put off the vote came after the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, a Republican who controls one of three seats on the board, formally asked for a one-month postponement, raising concerns about financial and legal issues related to the project. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat who controls another seat, has also expressed doubts about the stadium.

As a result of the delay, the status of the 75,000-seat stadium will still be up in the air only seven weeks before the International Olympic Committee meets in Singapore on July 6 to select Paris, London, Lisbon, Moscow or New York for the Summer Games. The uncertainty could hurt New York's standing when the Olympic committee issues a major evaluation of the bid cities in early June, because Paris, regarded as the front-runner, already has an Olympic-size stadium.

Mayor Bloomberg, a Republican, has insisted that New York has no chance of getting the Games if the stadium is not approved before the Singapore meeting. Every day that goes by, "the odds on us getting the Olympics go down and the odds on us getting a stadium go down," the mayor said on Monday.

His spokesman, Edward Skyler, said last night that the mayor remains optimistic that the project will eventually be approved on its merits.

Opponents of the stadium, including neighborhood residents, the city's largest civic groups and some Broadway theater owners, say that it will cause traffic congestion and pollution on days when it is used as a football stadium by the Jets, while repelling development nearby.

Both Mr. Silver and Mr. Bruno have repeatedly said that the stadium should not be considered by the board while there is outstanding litigation, such as the lawsuits filed against the stadium by Cablevision. Mr. Bruno also complained yesterday that the state and the Jets have failed to provide sufficient financial information, given the size of the taxpayers' investment in the project, $600 million.

But both men have taken pains not to be painted as the villains who cost the city the Olympics.

Mr. Bruno said yesterday that if the 2012 games are awarded to New York, "we in the Senate are committed to building whatever facilities it takes to host the Olympics, wherever it's appropriate to host the Olympics."

The comment seemed to suggest a willingness to move the stadium from Manhattan to Queens, where borough officials would welcome it.

But the third member of the control board, Governor Pataki, a Republican, supports the stadium in Manhattan and wanted to force one of the other two to take responsibility for the delay.

"I want to see a vote tomorrow," Mr. Pataki said yesterday, hours before the postponement was announced by his budget director, John Cape. "I think the stadium and convention complex is important. I think the timing of it is important. The Olympics is going to be decided in less than two months, and I would urge a vote tomorrow. I can't force that to happen."

Although the vote will probably occur at the regular June meeting of the board, Mr. Cape, who also serves as the board's chairman, said a special meeting could be called with seven days' notice.

The political wrangling played out as thousands of union construction workers demonstrated in Albany in favor of the proposed stadium, which would double as a convention hall. On Monday, stadium opponents brought to Albany what they said were 25,000 messages against the stadium.

Mr. Silver and Mr. Bruno have not formally taken positions on the stadium, although they have both expressed qualms about it and said the vote should wait until a court settles some of the legal challenges on June 2.

Mr. Silver and Mr. Bruno also raised numerous questions concerning financial, legal and security aspects of the project.

"There are too many unanswered questions about this project," Mr. Silver said in an interview last night. "One is what is the extent of the public money going into this project. It's well beyond the $600 million, that's clear."

At the same time, Mr. Silver is negotiating with the Bloomberg administration over a new economic development package for his downtown district. Mr. Bruno, according to state officials, is looking for money for upstate projects to offset state funds for the stadium.

As the issue continued to unfold last night in Albany, Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group said it appeared that Mr. Bruno and Mr. Silver may each be carefully straddling divisions within their Senate and Assembly majority conferences and trying to avoid alienating anyone.

"I think the are some substantive differences," said Mr. Horner, who is opposed to the stadium. "I think the leaders reflect the ambivalence in their conferences. I think there's generally deep ambivalence in both majority conferences on the wisdom of developing this asset by building a sports stadium."

Al Baker in Albany contributed reporting for this article.

Of all things, Salt Lake City news. This seems to work more for the political intrigue than the thought that anything other than a stadium for Fake Salt Lake errrr Reál Salt Lake... but the Wasatch Front may have matched a site to a deal-maker with inroads to Salt Lake County and the state of Utah.

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2740820

...and, ****, some people are really chuffed right now...

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600134791,00.html

If you have heard by now, the Jets' plan to build the stadium on the West Side of Manhattan is now D.O.A.. The state body that was supposed to give final approval on the stadium plan, voted instead to not approve it. Questions about the effects of the West Side plan on the rebuilding efforts at the former WTC were the reasons given by one politician who is a board member. They needed unanimous approval for the project to go ahead. - Transic

Read the article from New York Newsday

Giants willing to discuss co-ownership of new stadium with Jets

By TOM CANAVAN
AP Sports Writer

June 7, 2005, 4:46 PM EDT


EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- The New York Giants are willing to work out an agreement with the Jets to share ownership of a new $750 million stadium at the Meadowlands if the Jets' plans to build a stadium on the New York City's West Side fall apart.

"Our preference all along has been to play in a building with the Jets," Giants chief operating officer John K. Mara said Tuesday. "This is not a risk-free proposition, coming up with $750 million and financing the stadium."

The advantage of having the Jets share in the ownership and play in the same stadium would be that the teams would not compete for money from advertisers and suite owners.

"If the teams are competing in different buildings, you're fighting for that money," Mara said.

The new, 80,000-seat stadium for the Giants is expected to be ready for the 2009 season.

A call to the Jets offices seeking comment was not immediately returned Tuesday afternoon.

The Jets' bid to build their own stadium ran into a roadblock Monday when a powerful New York state board rejected a plan to build a $2 billion stadium in Manhattan. Lawmakers on the state Public Authorities Control Board indicated they would not approve the $300 million in funding for the stadium.

The three-member state board _ comprised of representatives for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Gov. George Pataki and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno _ shot down the funding in a vote late Monday afternoon. The board's actions must be unanimous, and only Pataki's representative voted yes.

Mara said he has spoken with Jets chief Jay Cross within the last few weeks and said the two men plan to speak again "soon," at which time Mara expects to discuss the possibility of the two teams sharing the new stadium.

Still to be resolved, however, is the question of when the massive Xanadu shopping and entertainment complex near the new stadium will be open. The Giants want the facility to either be closed or drastically limited on game days; a court hearing on ongoing litigation involving the Giants, the Xanadu developers and the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority is scheduled for June 17.

"We can work as hard as we want, but if we don't make an agreement with Xanadu and the developers, we're back to square one," Mara said.

A $2 billion stadium in Manhattan. Think about that for a minute. Seriously, has any stadium ever generated enough income to service a $2 billion dollar debt?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aaYqaJM8rnUI&refer=us

NYC Stadium Supporters May Try End Run With New Plan (Update 1)

June 8 (Bloomberg) -- The New York Jets and supporters of a stadium and convention facility the football team wants on Manhattan's west side said they are looking at options to still build it, including revisions in the plan to circumvent the state legislative leaders who oppose it.

"It could be done and I would carry the ball in the Council to get it done," said City Council Finance Committee Chairman David Weprin in a City Hall interview. "A majority of the council now supports the stadium, and as long as the facility continued to provide enough revenue to make financial sense for the city, our members would support it."

One proposal calls for eliminating the need for state financing by replacing the stadium's planned retractable roof with a less-expensive fixed dome. Winning approval of a revised project would take at least six months, said Weprin -- well beyond the July 6 date for the International Olympic Committee to choose a host for the 2012 Games.

The city's Olympic hopes were set back two days ago when a plan for a $2.2 billion stadium with a $300 million state subsidy was vetoed by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. The other cities competing to host the 2012 games are Paris, London, Madrid and Moscow.

Olympic Disadvantage

Jets President Jay Cross said in an interview that the proposal to shift control of the project from the state to the city "is one possible route we're exploring, but it's much too early to say it's the one. The main thing is we haven't given up and we're still in the fight." The team has spent more than $63 million developing and promoting the stadium plan.

While the stadium might lose its allure as an Olympics venue without a capability for open-air summer events, it might be the only way to get it built so that it could function as an expanded convention facility and football stadium, Weprin said.

It also probably couldn't get done until well after the Nov. 8 mayoral election, Weprin said. Aside from political considerations, it would take months to develop a revised environmental impact statement that would go through reviews by community boards and the city Planning Commission before it's reviewed by the council, he added.

Weprin said the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg at first tried to prevent City Council oversight of the land use process to avoid uncertainty about how that vote might turn out. During the past several weeks, though, 28 of the council's 51 members have publicly said they support the project.

Economic Engine

While Bloomberg campaigned unsuccessfully to get the stadium approved in time to boost the bid for the 2012 Olympics, the economic rationale he offered for the project was more sweeping. He has described it as an investment that would attract conventions to the city, creating jobs and increasing city tax revenue through an expanded tourist industry. Winning the Olympic bid, he said yesterday, would be "icing on the cake."

Bloomberg administration officials declined to comment on their plans for the stadium today.

Jay Kriegel, president of NYC 2012, the private sponsor of the city's Olympic bid, said the City Council led strategy would take too long to salvage his organization's 10-year effort to win the games for New York. He said a coalition of business and union leaders had joined to try to persuade Silver and Bruno to change their minds.

"People around the country are calling us saying they are very upset," Kriegel said. "We are working as hard as we can to keep the bid alive. Albany works in mysterious and wonderful ways, and in my lifetime I've seen all kinds of things change in a matter of hours or days up there. It's fair to say that approval by the Public Authorities Control Board is critical to our project."

Development Rights

Jets vice president Matthew Higgins, who with Cross attended a City Hall rally to support the stadium, said the team intends to go ahead with its $250 million purchase of development rights over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority rail yards, where the stadium was to be situated.

"Stadium or no stadium, we intend to pay," he said. The chief competitor for the site, Cablevision Systems Corp., proposed a mixed-used development dominated by housing.

The mayor is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Henry Goldman in New York at hgoldman@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 8, 2005 16:41 EDT

I guess they're not ready to throw in the towel just yet. As a "Plan B" it may not turn out to be that bad. The neighborhood is quite familiar to those who like seeing planes fly over the crowds. - Transic

http://www.gamesbids.com/cgi-bin/news/viewnews.cgi?category=1&id=1118619735

Sunday, June 12, 2005

New York 2012 Announces Olympic Stadium At Queens Site
Posted 7:42 pm ET (GamesBids.com)

During a press conference at City Hall Sunday night (GMT -5), New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that an agreement has been reached with the New York Mets baseball team to build a new stadium by 2009 that would be converted to an Olympic stadium in 2012, should NYC2012 win the Olympic bid.

On Monday New York 2012 will ask the International Olympic Committee (IOC) executive to modify New York's Olympic plan.

The stadium, to be located in the current Shea Stadium parking lot, would be funded by the Mets and the City would pay for the needed associated infrastructure.

At the end of the 2011 baseball season, the stadium would be converted into the Olympic stadium and the Mets could play in Yankee Stadium for the 2012 season (The Yankees have agreed with this plan).

The International Broadcast Center would be located at nearby Willets Point, and the Stadium would be only 16 minutes from the Athletes Village.

The Mayor said "New Yorkers aren't quitters, we just don't walk away from our future", and although he said NYC2012 could have withdrawn from the race, it was not a desirable option.

"We want to do what's right for New York City."

NYC2012 will ask the IOC Executive Committee for the unusual opportunity to change their plans on Monday.

The Mayor said, "we will move quickly to present our plans" to the IOC.

Although he admitted it will be a "tougher sell than if we had gotten our first choice", the Mayor said "we have to go and play the best hand we can get and play it as well as we can".

He added, "it wasn't our first choice but it sure was an awful good alternative".

http://www.cpnonline.com/cpn/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000957139

Olympic Stadium Proposal Spotlights Queens Redevelopment
June 14, 2005
By Paul Rosta, Senior Associate Editor


Pushed unexpectedly onto the world stage as the centerpiece of New York City's revamped Olympic bid, the Queens site proposed for a $600-million Olympic and baseball stadium focuses attention on an often overlooked corner of New York City as prime renewal property: Willets Point, a 48-acre site that surrounds and includes Shea Stadium, the New York Mets' home field since 1964.

"It has remarkable assets, [but] no one's quite figured out what to do with it," said Charles Lauster, an architect and director of the Pergolous Urban Gallery at Baruch College's Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute.

After the New York Jets stadium proposal for the West Side of Manhattan was shot down last week, the spotlight abruptly shifted to Queens on Sunday when Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced plans for a privately financed $600-million park for the New York Mets that could be converted into the key Olympic venue for the 2012 summer games.

Within days, the city is scheduled to announce finalists in the competition to develop a master plan for the Willets Point area, now dominated by a flood of junkyards, automotive repair shops and related businesses surrounding Shea Stadium. City leaders want to take advantage of the area's railroad and highway transportation and improve the links among neighboring Flushing, Corona, the stadium area, and Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

"This area needs to be rezoned; it needs to be cleared," said Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York. Constructing a new stadium in the area "will identify a new plan for this area that will connect Willets Point to downtown Flushing," he added.

Some developers are already moving ahead with plans for nearby areas. For instance, Muss Development Co. plans to start construction by the end of the year on Flushing Town Center, a mixed-use project that would include a 750,000 square-foot retail center and 1,200 residential units.

Some observers are urging the city to make sure a new stadium suits the area's long-term best interests and not just the timely demands of an Olympic bid. Argues Newman Institute's Lauster: City officials "need to think much bigger than they're thinking now."

In a proposed master plan for Willets Point developed by several Newman Institute colleagues and the Queens Chamber of Commerce, the area would be anchored by a 3.5 million-square foot, multilevel development that would include the ballpark, a 300,000 square-foot exposition center, a 300-room hotel near the local subway station, and a deck above the railroad yards that now stand between Shea Stadium and local train stations.

The stadium's location is critical, Lauster contends. "Plunking the stadium in the wrong place could really mess things up for a long, long time," he said. The Queens Chamber's proposal calls for the stadium to be located at the edge of the current Shea Stadium parking lot so the rest of the facility can flow around it. The plan also calls for a second large facility, possibly a soccer stadium or other sports venue.

As part of a temporary conversion for the Olympics, the Mets/Olympic stadium's seating capacity would be expanded from 45,000 for baseball to 80,000. It would include an adjacent warm-up track and throwing field, and a central press and broadcast facility.

Unlike the controversial plan for a stadium on Manhattan's West Side scuttled last week by state legislative leaders, the Queens proposal appears likely to face relatively little opposition. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, who both sit on New York's Public Authorities Control Board, announced last week that they wouldn't support the New York Jets' long sought-after stadium. But they have already given their blessings to the Queens the project. Funding would include $85 million from the state and $75 million in city funding, a far cry from the $300 million apiece the city and state would have shelled out for the Manhattan stadium.

Read the article from Bloomberg.com

Full-Speed Ahead for Stadium-Building Juggernaut: Joe Mysak

June 17 (Bloomberg) -- Do you want to get into the hottest area of municipal finance? Try stadium-building.

Sure, Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation earlier this year proposed eliminating tax-exempt finance for stadiums, but don't worry.

That was just a proposal. The lobbyists have hardly begun their efforts to defeat it. Municipalities aren't going to stop building stadiums. They're going to keep building them, and financing them with bonds, taxable or tax-exempt. Politicians, one pundit pointed out recently, have an edifice complex.

Anyone who doubts that stadium finance is alive and well can look at the news out of New York this week. Not too long ago, people figured that the stadium building boom had passed New York by. No longer! The city has proposed building new stadiums for both the New York Mets and the Yankees baseball teams, and both would be financed with tax-exempt bonds.

The stadium for the Mets would be convertible to one suited to the Olympics, should New York win in its bid for the 2012 games. Mayor Michael Bloomberg's earlier proposal to build an Olympic stadium over rail yards on the West Side of Manhattan was blocked by the state's Public Authorities Control Board. Nobody is on record as opposing the two new baseball stadiums.

The mayor is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.

Time to Borrow

Stadiums these days are pretty pricey things, running $800 million or more. The Mets earlier this week estimated that using tax-exempt bonds to build their $800 million-plus stadium would save them more than $10 million a year. The New York Yankees' new stadium will also cost around $800 million.

It's a good time to borrow money in the tax-exempt market. Top-rated issuers are paying around 4.25 percent to borrow money for 30 years. The Bond Buyer's 20 General Obligation Bond Index is now at its lowest level since the waning days of the Johnson administration.

Even if you aren't a top-rated issuer, rates are still cheap. Earlier this month, New York's Westchester County sold $216 million in bonds backed by its share of the 1998 settlement with the tobacco industry. The bonds were rated BBB by Standard & Poor's, and carried top yields of 5.30 percent in 2045.

Pay Their Way

The big difference between the new stadium plans and the ones both the Mets and Yankees thought they had in place with the mayor's predecessor, Rudolph Giuliani, is that both teams are footing more, in the case of the Mets, or all, in the case of the Yankees, of the bill. Under the Giuliani plans, the teams would have split the cost of new stadiums with the city.

But that's New York. Both teams evidently realize that there are advantages to being located in the city and are willing to pay something for that privilege. The same may not be the case for your town, no matter what town it is.

Critics Trampled

And so municipalities will continue to sell bonds to build stadiums, in the hope of attracting new or existing teams. Teams will continue to threaten to leave unless they get a new stadium.

The handful of critics who complain that private owners should pay for their own ballparks, that building stadiums is wasteful, that municipalities should spend their money on better public services and education --well, such people have generally been trampled in the dust.

You may have thought the stadium building juggernaut was running out of steam. It's been 13 years, after all, since the Baltimore Orioles opened the retro park at Camden Yards that sparked the baseball stadium renaissance.

Since then, the Cleveland Indians, Colorado Rockies, Cincinnati Reds, Seattle Mariners, Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers, Pittsburgh Pirates and Philadelphia Phillies have all opened new parks, financed in whole or in part with tax-exempt bonds, and usually with a hefty helping of public participation.

`Friday Night Lights'

Baseball isn't alone in the stadium mania. Football, basketball and hockey have all been part of the building boom. So has minor league baseball.

So, for that matter, have colleges and universities. ``An Athletic Arms Race,'' the Wall Street Journal dubbed the ``stadium expansion binge'' at more than three dozen schools.

The Houston Chronicle recently reported on a perhaps frightening sign of things to come, when it carried a story on school districts across the state building fancy new stadiums for their high school football teams.

``The $13 million to $27 million stadium with all the trimmings has become almost commonplace, a concrete monument to hometown pride and the pre-eminence of Friday night football in Texas,'' the article said.

`Misplaced Priorities'

The article noted that some critics complained of ``wildly misplaced priorities'' at a time when school districts ``are struggling to pay for teachers and books.'' The Chronicle then interviewed Buzz Bissinger, whose 1990 book, ``Friday Night Lights,'' about high school football in Odessa, Texas, was turned into a highly regarded movie last year.

Bissinger was, predictably, critical, calling the stadium- building boom an epidemic.

``I talk to educators, administrators and coaches all the time, and they tell me, `Yes, sports is really careening out of control.' Then they build stadiums with skyboxes and instant replay. As if a high school needed instant replay. I'm glad to see my book has done no good at all.''

Welcome to the future of public finance.

To contact the writer of this column:
Joe Mysak in New York at jmysakjr@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 17, 2005 00:05 EDT

Read the article from the AP (via MSNBC)

N.Y. releases first drawing of proposed stadium
New Mets ballpark would be converted into Olympic venue for 2012 Games

The Associated Press
Updated: 6:59 p.m. ET June 26, 2005

NEW YORK - The committee organizing New York's bid for the 2012 Olympics on Sunday released the first drawing of the proposed New York Mets stadium that would be converted into an Olympic Stadium if the city is awarded the games.

The Mets plan to build the stadium, and it would become the team's new home by 2009.

The city revised its Olympic bid to include the 80,000-seat Queens stadium after the collapse of a $2 billion project on Manhattan's West Side that would have served as home to the New York Jets and the centerpiece of the city's Olympic bid.

The $600 million Queens stadium would host the Olympics' opening and closing ceremonies, as well as the track and field and soccer finals.

The rendering shows an airy and roofless stadium with space for advertising on its side and a plaza next to it.

The organizing committee, NYC2012, said in a press release that the stadium would meet the highest competition standards.

The new plan would put the Olympic stadium near the Olympic village and the International Broadcast Center, also planned for Queens. It would take athletes 17 minutes to travel from the village to the stadium, officials said.

After the Olympics, the stadium would be converted back to a baseball stadium, and the 25,000-seat outdoor track would be moved and installed permanently at the new Icahn Stadium on Randall's Island, organizers said.

NYC2012 submitted a revised bid to the International Olympic Committee's executive board on Friday, officials said.

The IOC will select the host city on July 6. The other cities competing for the games are Paris, London, Moscow and Madrid.




Artists' drawing of proposed new stadium for the Mets in New York. It would be converted to an Olympic Stadium for the 2012 Games.

Read the article from NJ.com

Jets' objections to Giants' plans hold up stadium

Thursday, July 28, 2005

BY MATTHEW FUTTERMAN
Star-Ledger Staff

After a series of meetings and phone conversations, the Jets have made one thing perfectly clear about their future in the Meadowlands Sports Complex:

If they are going to share a stadium with the Giants, it won't be the one currently on the drawing board.

The Jets have raised several objections to the Giants' design for the stadium and the overall plan for the project, according to officials involved with the ongoing talks among the two teams and state officials. The standoff has prompted acting Gov. Richard Codey to order his top aides to mediate the discussions and try to bring the two sides together just weeks after opting to stay on the sidelines and letting the NFL rivals negotiate a deal.

"They've got some issues they have to work out among themselves, but the state is going to be present at the meetings," Codey said yesterday. "Everyone has their own ideas about how this project should happen, and these ideas have to be worked through."

Jets and Giants officials declined to discuss their negotiations, but at a meeting last Friday -- the first face-to-face contact between the teams in several weeks -- and in subsequent phone conversations the Jets criticized the Giants' conceptual plan for the new $800 million stadium complex, which the Giants want to build between their current home and the Meadowlands Racetrack.

According to executives and state officials familiar with the Jets' analysis, a chief concern is the Giants' plan to build their training camp at the sports complex on some 40 additional acres the Giants are allowed to develop as part of an agreement with the state signed in the spring. The executives and state officials requested anonymity because the Giants and Jets are attempting to keep their talks confidential.

The Jets have felt like second-class citizens since they moved to the Giants Stadium in 1984, and putting the Giants' training complex next to what is supposed to be a neutral stadium could make the property feel like a rival's home turf. The Jets would prefer that the teams develop the property with stores and restaurants that would produce more cash and have a more neutral feel than a practice complex for the Giants.

Executives and officials familiar with the Giants' thinking say the team would be happy to create a neutral environment at the Meadowlands and move their offices and training complex elsewhere if the Jets make the same 40-year commitment to the sports complex the Giants have made. However, if the Jets want the right to end the partnership and move the team to New York in five or 10 years, the Giants want to be able to build what they want around the stadium.

Codey said he has tried to impress on both sides that modern technology, including electric signs and colored lighting, will allow each team to produce a true home field, regardless of what else is built around the stadium.

"When there is a Jets game there, it's going to feel like a Jet game. And when there is a Giant game, it will feel like a Giant game," said Codey, who has ordered his chief counsel, Paul Fader, and Carl Goldberg, chairman of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, to get involved with the talks.

The Jets also complained that the placement of the stadium closer to the Meadowlands Racetrack and the planned Xanadu retail and entertainment center do not make sense. They say that location doesn't work with the current system of access roads inside the sports complex, which would become more clogged under the Giants' plans.

"Basically the Jets don't like much of anything about the Giants' layout," said one executive involved with the development plans at the sports complex. "They want to work with the Giants and there has been dialog between the two teams, but so far it has not been great dialog."

The conceptual discussions have prevented the two teams from discussing how to divide the costs and revenues from the proposed venture. The sports authority, which operates the Meadowlands Sports Complex and takes in millions of dollars each year from the current Giants Stadium, would like to reach a three-way deal that would give the state a share of the stadium's profits and schedule in exchange for contributing to the construction of a retractable roof.

The state reached a deal with the Giants in April that gave the team 75 acres to build a 100 percent privately financed stadium. The state will contribute $30 million to bring utilities and swallow some $124 million in debt on the current stadium, which will be demolished.

Until June the Jets were focused on building their own stadium on Manhattan's West Side, but the plan fell victim to a political dogfight. While the Jets have not publicly given up on their dream of building a $2 billion stadium, the team has held preliminary talks with New York officials about building a stadium in Willets Point near Shea Stadium in Queens. The Jets had ruled out moving to Queens but might reconsider if the team could get the kind of public investment in the project the Mets and Yankees recently received for their planned stadiums.

In both cases, those packages included roughly $500 million in public money for everything from tax-free bonds to building garages to acquiring land.

The chance that New York might come to the Jets with a similar package is driving Codey to push the Giants and Jets to accelerate their negotiations for the new Meadowlands stadium.

"I've asked them to step up the times they are meeting and the length of those meetings," Codey said. "They've agreed and now they need to sit down and work out an agreement."

Read the article from the New York Times

New Jersey Likes Jet Proposal to Share Giants Stadium

By LAURA MANSNERUS
Published: August 12, 2005

TRENTON, Aug. 11 - New Jersey officials on Thursday applauded a proposal for a huge new football stadium in the Meadowlands sports complex to house the Giants and the Jets, urging the teams to consider a retractable dome that would allow bigger events, including the Super Bowl, at the site.

The Jets, apparently intent on staying in New Jersey, presented an ambitious plan on Wednesday that would expand the $800 million stadium that the Giants proposed just four months ago when the Jets were still planning a move to the West Side of Manhattan.

Under the Jets proposal, given to the Giants and the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority and first reported in The Star-Ledger, the two teams would evenly split the cost of a 90,000-seat stadium, said L. Jay Cross, the Jets president. It suggests changes in the site plan that would connect the stadium more closely with the Xanadu retail and entertainment complex now rising on the other side of the Meadowlands.

If built, the new stadium would be the second-largest in the National Football League, behind the Washington Redskins' home, the 92,000-seat FedEx Field stadium, which is also considered the league's most profitable.

The sports authority president, George R. Zoffinger, said in a statement that with the new megastadium, the Meadowlands "will be transformed into the most attractive sports and entertainment destination in the country."

If the stadium has a retractable dome, Mr. Zoffinger said in an interview, "you get Super Bowl, the Final Four, political conventions, all the things that can stimulate the New Jersey economy."

"It's not in the proposal, but it's something we're going to push for," Mr. Zoffinger said. "This is the one opportunity in the next 50 years to get it right."

The Jets are hesitant, however. "If the state wants to explore funding a retractable roof, we will consider it," said Matthew Higgins, a team vice president.

For now, the team, which has been playing in the Meadowlands since 1984, has not ruled out a move to New York. Mr. Cross said team officials had accepted an invitation from the Queens borough president, Helen Marshall, to look at a site at Willets Point.

The Giants' chief executive, John Mara, declined to discuss the proposal. "We've been in discussions with the Jets for quite a while now," he said, "and our agreement with them is that we would keep these discussions private."

The Jets and Giants have been negotiating since the Jets' plan to move to the West Side of Manhattan fell through in June. While the Giants had always wanted the Jets to remain in New Jersey as a partner in the privately financed new stadium, the prospect has complicated talks involving the Giants, the Sports Authority and the Xanadu developers.

The sports complex's future has been rewritten many times in the last few years, and James E. McGreevey, then the governor, charged the sports authority with getting the state out of the sports business. To revitalize the site, on prime real estate within sight of Manhattan, the authority approved the five-million-square-foot Xanadu project, surrounding the Continental Airlines Arena, home of the New Jersey Nets and the New Jersey Devils.

The Giants' plans for a new stadium raised even more questions, now under negotiation, about how the sports complex would accommodate the construction and the additional traffic generated by Xanadu.

Mr. Cross said the Jets proposal would retain the 75,000 seats now available in general seating at the Giants Stadium, expand luxury suites and add 8,000 club seats, while there are only a handful now. He said he had no estimate of the total cost.

Brian McCarthy, a spokesman for the football league, said it would contribute $150 million to construction costs, provided the stadium meets certain criteria, but that is the maximum even if two teams play there.

Preliminary agreement between Minnesota Vikings and Anoka County (Blaine, north of Minneapolis).

http://www.startribune.com/stories/510/5623854.html

Of course, the Vikings still want the state to contribute. There's probably no accident to the timing of this announcement, with speculation of a special session still ebbing and flowing.

Jets and Giants are in the middle of a 10-day extension of a deadline to come to an agreement on a new "joint" stadium in the Meadowlands.

http://www.newsday.com/sports/football/ny-spgstad174430...y-football-headlines

There has been talk of a new stadium for the Jets in Queens, although the Jets only seem to be interested if public dollars are involved, hence the need to repeat "football-soccer stadium" ad nauseum. Don't think MLS wants to pay more rent in the Tri-State.

San Jose may be taking up part of their proposed baseball lot with, you guessed it, a proposed home for the Earthquakes.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/13281892.htm

Not so much a new stadium, but a "new" concept that's hard NOT to envision coming to a stateside venue near you soon...

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/features/2015/news/story?id=2275252

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/search/ci_4620946

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/15956422.htm

Is there a revolution not being televised? Or are these hiccups?

Explaining Kansas City- the measure was touted as solely for soccer fields, mostly for youth use. The price tag came in at $75 million. Kansas City Wizards ownership was touting a new stadium NEXT TO the complex, with no public funding for construction or, supposedly, the land. There's inference from either this or another article that many voters thought the price tag too high for just the youth complex, especially when finding out that the owner of the land most likely in question contributed $500,000 to the "vote yes" campaign.

Add in the 49ers breaking off talks with San Francisco and expressing a desire to move. We're going to see a possible bigger litmus test soon.

http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/...ay04,0,3897483.story

Brooklyn Bridge: Wilpon hopes ambience of Citi Field will revive memories of Ebbets Field and give fans a special connection

BY STEVEN MARCUS | steven.marcus@newsday.co
May 4, 2008

Fred Wilpon promises the transition from Shea Stadium to Citi Field next season will in no way mirror the events of 1957, when a team vanished and a storied ballpark subsequently disappeared. Ebbets Field in rubble remains indelible in the minds of Brooklynites, including aformer one named Wilpon, who still recount the painful story to their families.

Wilpon still has flashbacks of his beloved Dodgers leaving Brooklyn for Los Angeles and the demolition of Ebbets Field in February 1960. The Mets may be leaving Shea, but Wilpon said they never will abandon the city.

"I've never said I was going to move this team somewhere else, I never threatened that," the Mets' chairman said. "That was never possible. I've told people, everything else I have can be for sale, the team's not for sale. I've lived through the times and never, not even for a fleeting second, have I ever thought about revoking the team."

When Wilpon and Nelson Doubleday acquired the Mets in 1980, Wilpon already had in mind a stadium that would be reminiscent of his young adulthood at Ebbets Field, which the residents viewed as the timeless centerpiece of their neighborhood.

Wilpon, now 71, watched former high school teammate Sandy Koufax pitch at Ebbets Field. "It was fantastic," he said. "Older guys like Pee Wee and Duke, guys who were at the end of their careers, felt the pain when Ebbets was gone. For Sandy, it was early in his career. Sandy liked Ebbets and pitching in his home city, but was a new experience for him."

Ebbets Field was built for baseball, with 32,000 seats ensuring an intimate viewing experience.

"It was not a football-baseball field," Wilpon said. "In that era, it still had some charm architecturally. Even when Ebbets got as old as Shea is now, it was still a baseball field. Most of the football-baseball stadiums like Shea have now been replaced.

"Stadiums such as Shea are not great experiences for the fans. The seats are too far from the field; they don't face the field in the right way. That is not to say there isn't a lot of nostalgia and memories of good things, interesting things. When you were young, you didn't care about the bathrooms or concession stands because you were 10. When you were 10, this was new. You look at it now and we are at a great disadvantage for our fans."

Wilpon recounted the departure of the Dodgers and said the ire of that time was directed not only at Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley but also then-New York City building commissioner Robert Moses.

There are differing accounts of what actually occurred leading up to the Dodgers' move. Some say O'Malley's first choice was to build a domed stadium in the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, which now is the projected site for the NBA Nets. Reports from that time said Moses wanted O'Malley to build on the present site of Shea Stadium. O'Malley, perhaps bent on leaving for Los Angeles, refused, and the chain of events unfolded.

Wilpon said Moses shares "a big piece" of the historical blame. "Very definitely, he shares the burden," he said.

The Mets never would have come into existence had the Dodgers built a new ballpark. Years later, Wilpon would be a peer with another O'Malley, Peter, who took over the Dodgers from his father. Wilpon never bestowed the sins of the father onto Peter, saying he and Koufax used to pal around with the young man.

"Peter and I were about the same ages and he is a terrific man," Wilpon said.

The O'Malley family sold the Dodgers in 1998; if the Dodgers had remained in New York, Wilpon wonders if he would have had the opportunity to buy them years earlier. Acquiring the Mets became the next-best thing.

The Dodgers played at Ebbets Field for 45 seasons, the same number the Mets will have played at Shea. "I did not realize that," Wilpon said.

The demise of Ebbets was the turning point for Wilpon, the future multi-million-dollar real estate developer with an appetite for baseball that has consumed his life.

It would not be a stretch to say that Wilpon's path in life was changed by the Dodgers' move. A vision was born in which, if he ever had the opportunity, he would try to right that wrong by first buying a team and then housing it in a facsimile of Ebbets Field.

It was a highly ambitious thought for the son of a funeral parlor manager, but it is the dream-come-true concept behind Citi Field as it continues to rise beyond Shea's outfield walls.

"The love of the game and this city is in my DNA," Wilpon said. "I've lived here all my life. People have asked me why I am building a smaller stadium . I didn't build a smaller stadium to make money. I'm doing it because that is the way to give fans the best experience of being close, like in Ebbets Field."

The same way Wilpon watched the game in his youth.

First off, the site I perused today...

http://www.gamesbids.com/forums/index.php?act=idx

Lots of interesting stuff.

- For those of you worried about Portland MLS, be ready for the ride. It WILL be closer than people thought yesterday and think today. Main problem: Vancouver Whitecaps want to use BC Place Stadium as a temporary venue. You may recall a roof failure last year. That's temporarily fixed. Over the last 4 months, British Columbia and Vancouver have finally decided the roof might need to be replaced. There's essentially a plan that may or may NOT be in place where construction begins on a retractable roof after this BC Lions season, halts during the Olympics, and supposedly wraps up in time for the 2011 MLS Season. I'm not terribly confident that BC will pull this off. They're talking about $250 million CAN just for the new roof, with proceeds from development funding it. Um...

- London's Olympic Stadium will not be new Wembley, which you probably knew. They're building an 80,000-seat structure, with NO plans for concessions inside (the German World Cup apparently featured "festivals" just outside the stadium, which is how they plan to feed people), then will downsize the facility to 25,000 after the Olympics. The 25,000 "structure" will actually be dug into the ground, which probably demonstrates how ingress/egress to the outside concessions will work. It will almost certainly remain a track stadium.

- The Chicago 2016 bid proposes an Olympic Stadium in Washington Park that will also seat 80,000 (also with no internal concessions), then will be downsized into a 5,000-to-10,000 seat amphitheater or multi-purpose facility.

There's some mention that Olympic organizers are warming to this "less legacy / reduce footprint" concept. Highly interesting to me, anyway.

Here's a bit of a bombshell.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/conte...homepage_tab_newstab

Georgia Dome isn't even 20 years old, right?

WTF?