quote:

---

The team has agreed to pay $700 million to $750 million to build the new stadium if the city issues tax-free bonds for the project, and is also asking the city and the state to fund $100 million to $300 million for additional infrastructure, including parking garages, a Metro-North rail station, and road and sewerage improvements.

---

This sure doesn't sound to me as if the Yankees are going to build a new ballpark ENTIRELY by themselves. With the infrastructure costs paid by the city and state, the Yankees might pay, oh, about 2/3 of the cost. Therefore, it seems to me that NO politician in Oregon ought to be claiming that any stadium in Portland has to be built entirely with private funds "because the Yankees are doing it". Number one, the Yankees AREN'T doing it, and number two, the Yankees already have a team that is producing revenue, whereas for Portland, we have no team yet that even COULD be putting money into a new ballpark.

I don't mind smart politicians who have an opinion about something and know what they're talking about, but I won't abide STUPID politicians who are ignorant of the situations they are commenting on!

I just cant imagine Yankee baseball in any stadium except Yankee Stadium#2, the house that RUTH!Built!

It seems that the Yankees are close to a new stadium. Then again, the Jets are also "close" to getting a stadium as well. As you should by now know, nothing is that cut-and-dried in NY. - Transic

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/39555.htm

YANKS 90% TOWARD NEW HOME

By DAVID SEIFMAN

February 7, 2005 -- The very public war over a West Side football stadium isn't stopping the Yankees from quietly moving ahead with their own plans for a new $800 million ballpark in The Bronx.

The team hopes to sign a memorandum of understanding with the city and state before opening day, April 3, sources said.

"[T]hey're 90 percent of the way there," said one source.

Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff wouldn't commit to a timetable for announcing a deal.

"We've been engaging in very constructive discussions that have become very specific. I'm hopeful we'll get an agreement done with them. When it exactly will be, I don't want to promise," Doctoroff said.

He insisted there's no link between the West Side and Bronx projects "” but suggested that the same forces are at work in both undertakings.

"[T]he idea of getting big things done in this city "” if you can't get one done, it's going to be tough to get the others done," he said.

The Yanks will pay the entire construction bill for the stadium, which has increased from a projected $750 million to $800 million. Officials have said it could be open by 2009.

The city and state would turn over land in Macombs Dam Park, across from the current stadium, build garages for 12,000 vehicles, provide tax-free financing and pony up $200 million to $300 million for infrastructure improvements.

The Yankees are suggesting "” but not demanding "” a new Metro-North platform, an expanded ferry terminal and extension of an overhead subway platform.

"The debt service [on the stadium] would be something like $50 million a year," said a source "” but the net cost would be closer to $35 million because the Yanks would owe less under baseball's revenue-sharing formula.

The current proposal calls for a ballpark with an exterior modeled on the 1923 original and an interior featuring 50 luxury boxes, at least two restaurants and a clubhouse over center field.

Read the article from the NY Daily News

It's back to the future for Yanks

Bombers' new digs will look like scene from Ruth's heyday

By T.J. QUINN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

From the outside, it'll be 1923 again.

Limestone walls rising like a fortress, standing sentinel in refurbished parkland. It's the view Babe Ruth had when he went to work in the house they built for him.

On the inside, a mix of modernity and antiquity has officials from City Hall, Albany and the Bronx gushing: the old frieze hanging from the roof like copper lace, bullpens back in the outfield where they used to be, but with open concourses (with six times the space for concession sales) and sight lines to the field from almost anywhere in the park.

This is the new Yankee Stadium, almost ready for prime time, all but signed, sealed and to be delivered by Opening Day 2009.

Lawyers for the city, state and the team are completing a "memorandum of understanding," sources told the Daily News, and an announcement is expected around May 1.

As of now, the new stadium is designed to seat 50,800, less than the current capacity of 57,478, but with 50 to 60 luxury suites.

It will be located just north of the existing stadium, between 161st and 164th Sts. and between Jerome and River Aves.

The stadium itself, funded entirely by the team, will run about $800 million, while the total project will cost about $1.1 billion with the city and the state providing the extra $300 million for a new Metro-North station, parkland along the now decrepit waterfront and better parking facilities around the stadium.

Yankee President Randy Levine and city and state officials would not comment directly about the plans or the pending agreement, but confirmed they are in the final stages.

"We're working very closely with the city and the state and trying to finalize our current plan," Levine said. "We expect to announce it in the near future, and we hope to break ground in 2006 and be ready to play in 2009."

Officials familiar with the plans gave The News an exclusive preview of the designs for the new park, which includes all the amenities of a state of the art shopping mall:

• The stadium will be comprised of two separate structures: one, the exterior wall, constructed to replicate the original Yankee Stadium, built in 1923, and the other the interior stadium itself, rising over the top of the exterior. From the outside the structures will look like one building, almost identical in materials and design to the original stadium. There will be a "great hall" between the exterior wall and the interior structure, featuring five to six times more retail square footage than the current stadium.
  
  
• The signature frieze, the lattice work that once rimmed the original stadium roof and was recreated in the outfield of the current stadium, will be added to the new stadium's roof. The frieze (commonly but incorrectly known as "the facade") was painted white during the 1960s, as it now appears above the outfield. But the new stadium will return to the original copper.
  
  
• The city will provide $50 million worth of infrastructure for the new stadium. But the city and state, depending on the agreement, will build and control all 11,000 parking spaces in the area, a cash cow for taxpayers that one consultant told the Yankees was "too generous," a source said.
  

Perhaps best of all for the parties involved, there is no significant opposition to the project.

"We expect this project to be one that is supported by all," Levine said.

Originally published on April 15, 2005



Yankees unveil plans to build a new stadium in the Bronx with its original look (below).



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Read the article from the NY Post

NEW PARK TO SIT WELL WITH YANK DEVOTEES

By BILL SANDERSON

April 16, 2005 -- The Yankees' plans for a new Bronx stadium will be a hit with fans who want a closer view of the action "” with an extra 10,000 seats to be built at field level.

The new Yankee Stadium will feature 30,000 seats at field level and 20,000 in the upper tiers, according to the latest architectural plans described to The Post.

That's the reverse of the current layout of 30,000 upper-level seats and 20,000 seats where the action is.

And traditionalists will appreciate that the new stadium's playing field is to be laid out like the old one's, with Monument Park in the same spot in left-center field.

A grand entryway is to be built behind home plate, and, like the rest of the new stadium, its exterior will have the same Gothic lines as the original "” only bolder.

Plus, a replica of the familiar Gothic, white-painted, copper façade that ringed the original stadium is to again be built above the stands.

The team will pay for the $800 million stadium but expects the city or state government to replace the playing fields and tennis courts in Macombs Dam and Mullaly parks, at a cost of $60 million to $80 million.

The team also expects the government to build parking garages for 11,000 cars "” 4,000 more than can park in the existing garages. The government is to own the garages and keep all fees from them.

In addition, the Yankees want a new Metro-North train station "” something that's been discussed since the 1920s "” as well as a new ferry terminal and an extension of the 161st St. platform on the No. 4 subway line.

Those public-transportation improvements, however, are not vital, the team has said.

Read the article from the NY Daily News

Seems like
old times

Inside the deal for the new Yankee Stadium

By T.J. QUINN
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

In one of his last acts as mayor, Rudy Giuliani presented the world with his dream of New York's baseball future.

A new Yankee Stadium, a new Shea, both with domes, both teams picking up half the tab.

Total cost, $1.6 billion, but likely to rise.

"When Rudy put it forth it was just Rudy and he was just going to ram it in Rudy style," says Bronx borough president Adolfo Carrion. "If he had more time to be mayor and he was going to try to do this, I don't think he was going to be successful."

Giuliani may well have found himself in the sort of scrap Mayor Bloomberg is now in with the Jets and Nets as he tries to help them build new homes. Taxpayers just don't seem to have the stomach for publicly funded sports facilities anymore. Instead of pushing Giuliani's dream, Bloomberg took office and put a stop to the baseball stadium projects, saying New York had other priorities in its post-Sept. 11 existence.

Three and a half years later, however, the Yankees are within weeks of completing a deal with the city and state for a new park, and there is almost no significant opposition in sight. The Daily News reported yesterday that the parties are expected to announce completion of a "memorandum of understanding" around May 1, when they will reveal the ballpark plans by architectural firm HOK of Kansas City.

Only the location of the new park is the same as the proposal Giuliani made - in Macombs Dam and Mullaly parks, between 161st and 164th streets, just north of the current stadium. The Mets have been left to fend for themselves, the dome is gone from the plans, and the Yankees look like they're going to secure their new park as easily as they've taken the AL East over the past decade. Insiders say the project has been the baby of team president Randy Levine, a former deputy mayor for economic development under Giuliani and a consumate deal-maker. But even Levine, who forged his reputation negotiating contracts with the city's labor unions, might have failed if one George M. Steinbrenner III hadn't been convinced he could and would have to pay for the stadium himself.

Considering the size of the undertaking, the new stadium could be the closest thing New York will ever see to a politically bullet-proof project.

"The outlines (of the deal) look like it's a much better deal than what the Jets are doing," says Bob Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, a not-for-profit organization that studies planning and development. "They kept the requests for public subsidies to a bare minimum, and they've obviously worked more closely with the community."

That deal could make it harder for the Mets to make their own deal for a new park, and city sources say the team is focused on improving Shea Stadium and building the team's television network.

But Yaro, like Carrion, is not ready to declare the new Yankee Stadium a good proposition until he sees the details. A memorandum of understanding is not an enforceable document, just a guideline. The real details will come in the legislation the city and state will have to pass to appropriate the existing parkland to the team and to pay for projects like new parkland around the ballparks, converting the old stadium into other uses, building up the Bronx waterfront, putting in a new ferry pier, a Metro-North station and extending the subway platform. At some point, Yaro's RPA will do a study on the Yankees' new stadium, just as it did with the Jets' proposal.

The new Stadium itself is designed to dazzle, and has generated buzz among the government officials who have seen sketches of the plans. The ballpark - which will still be called Yankee Stadium (naming rights will not be sold) - will be comprised of two separate structures: one, the exterior wall, built to replicate the original 1923 stadium, and the other the interior stadium itself. From the outside they will look like one building, but inside, between the exterior wall and the interior structure, will be a "great hall." Not to mention five to six times more retail square footage than currently exists.

In the current stadium, roughly 30,000 seats are in the upper decks, with 20,000 below.

The new park would reverse that. The field would keep the current stadium's dimensions, although the relatively long space between home plate and the backstop would be shortened, no doubt to the delight of whoever the Yankees' catcher will be in 2009.

Unlike the current building, slathered in white paint 39 years ago, the new stadium will have a concrete and limestone exterior. As of now, the new stadium is designed to seat 50,800, less than the current capacity of 57,478, but with 50 to 60 luxury suites.

One item that has raised eyebrows with all parties, including consultants hired by the team, is the parking garages. Under the agreement, the city and state would build 4,000-4,500 parking spaces and maintain at least 11,000 in the area, and they would keep all the revenue. The team is not taking a cut.

If the lots - which could be privatized - charged an average of $25 per space, they would bring in $22,275,000 a year just during the 81 regular season games in the Bronx. Even if they only rented at 70% capacity, they would bring $15,592,500, allowing the government to recover its $100-150 million investment in relatively short order.

Yankees officials say they aren't being altruistic; they simply read the landscape, which was fairly legible after Bloomberg said in 2002 that a new baseball stadium would not be built with public money. In order to get any deal done, it had to be good for the taxpayers.

If there is a comparable stadium project, it is the San Francisco Giants' SBC Park. The city of San Francisco helped the team pay for infrastructure and acquire land, while the team built the building with its own money.

The proposal calls for the Yankees to pay for $800 million for construction of their new stadium. They will sell bonds, repay them and will be liable for them. No public money will be used for the building itself, officials say, and the team will assume all maintenance and operation costs.

The city will take over the old stadium (which it owns), knock down part of the outfield bleachers and possibly part of the grandstand and find a commercial use for the remaining building. Carrion's office has discussed a hotel, a hall of fame, leasing office space, staging college, high school and little league games on the field - it's entirely the city's decision. Once the Yankees are in the new park, they wash their hands of the old one.

The Bronx waterfront would be developed as parkland with an esplanade that runs down to the Bronx Terminal Market project. The Port Authority will build a ferry terminal on the waterfront, the MTA would get about $40 million in state money that has already been budgeted for a Metro-North stop. The MTA would also extend the subway platform a block to the new stadium.

The park around the old stadium would include a soccer field, a running track, 18 tennis courts, lighted basketball courts with stands and a promenade that would connect the Metro-North station to the new park. It would be landscaped and lined with vendors, similar to Eutaw Street just outside right field in Baltimore's Orioles Park at Camden Yards.

The total outlay of public money is $300 million, and Yankee officials privately insist it will end up being less; they want to generate further goodwill by having the project come in under the proposed budget.

And there's another reason the city is eager to make the deal, says one consultant involved in the project: because it owns the current stadium, the city would be responsible for future renovations. Besides the cost of improving the stadium, the city would also have to spend as much as $400-600 million to bring the stadium into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

But analysts say one of the smartest things the Yankees have done is to point out that public money is not necessary to build the stadium itself. They can proceed with the construction as long as the city provides the land and the infrastructure, but the stadium is not contingent on all the other projects. The Jets' plan requires the extension of the 7 train and the Javits Center and is part of an effort to bring the Olympics to New York and todevelop the West Side.

"There's a lot to learn there about how not to handle a project," Yaro says.

Levine won't discuss the specifics of the Yankees' plan, other than to say it is nearing completion. But when asked about the relative lack of opposition, he says that was by design. "We're working very closely with the mayor, the governor, all of the elected officials and the community," he says. "We expect this project to be one that is supported by all."

That attitude is the major difference from the project Giuliani presented in 2001, Carrion says.

"I think until we see the fine print of a memorandum of understanding and we come to some agreement on that process, I'm going to be very cautious," Carrion says. "But it's a heck of a lot better (than the previous deal) because there's been several years of discussion and thinking out loud about creating a set of conditions that works for everyone."

The Yankees' plan is not just a matter of good politics, however. There is one major difference between what they want to do and what the Jets want to do: the Yankees are trying to build on blighted land; the Jets want to build on the last undeveloped piece of Manhattan waterfront. The Jets have to displace buildings, change the character of a community, and use a large chunk of public money to do it. The Yankees claim they will displace no one.

The concerns within the Bronx community aren't about whether the stadium will change the neighborhood, but whether it will change it enough. South Bronx residents have long criticized the Yankees for ignoring community issues.

"I think the trepidation by just about everybody was, 'how much of your own money are you going to invest? We shouldn't have to carry the mortgage.' And I think that they stood up to that challenge and as a result everyone's comfort level went up," Carrion says. "I think we're at a good place, but obviously there's still a lot to be done. The fact that ther plan would be for an ($800 million) contruction project should translate into hundreds of millions of dollars of local contractor work, local employment, and a real and meaningful partnership with the local community on many levels.

"It's taken 82 years to get this right."

Grant Carys a lot of weight with George

When the Yankees gutted their home in the mid-70s, the signature feature of the stadium, the picket fence-like frieze hanging from the roof, had to go. The design meant a new roof with new lights, and no room for the frieze (commonly but incorrectly known as the facade). But a dapper, dimpled older gentleman visiting the stadium during its reconstruction urged George Steinbrenner to find a way to add it to the new stadium. After 30 years it can be revealed - Cary Grant was the reason the frieze was added above the outfield wall.

Yankee sources say they only recently learned about the Hollywood legend's involvement as they dug through old stadium records. But stadium personnel are still trying to figure out what happened to the original frieze. It was copper colored when the stadium opened in 1923, but after looking at records officials now aren't sure whether or not it was actually made of some sort of cheaper alloy. When CBS renovated the stadium in 1966, they painted the frieze white.

Officials are still trying to figure out whether the frieze currently in the outfield came from the original material, or whether the original is under the concrete. If so, and if it's in usable shape, they would like to find a way to use it in the new park.


Quinn

Originally published on April 16, 2005

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Read the article from the NY Daily News

Retro-Stadium
gets standing O

BY RICK HARRISON and DON SINGLETON
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

The Yankees' proposal for a brand-new old-fashioned stadium in the Bronx, revealed exclusively in yesterday's Daily News, appeared to hit a grand slam with New York fans.
While a few Yankee rooters interviewed by News reporters voiced minor concerns about the plan - the likelihood of higher ticket prices, for one - most said they look forward to watching the Bombers from new seats.

"They need a new stadium to keep up with everyone else," said Chris Quayle, 33, of Dover, N.J., who was wearing a Yankees cap as he stood with his girlfriend, Tonya Giessler, 34, outside Yankee Clubhouse on Fifth Ave. near 37th St.

"Even Boston redid their stadium to have a playground over the Green Monster," Quayle said. And it's not just a matter of keeping up with the Joneses, he added. The current Stadium "is starting to fall apart a little bit."

Quayle, who works for Viacom, peppered his conversation with references to Giessler's baseball leanings - while attending Northeastern University in Boston, she caught the Red Sox virus.

The proposed new Stadium "looks good, has that old-time look," said Ralph Taveras, 36, of Brooklyn, a Metro-North police officer passing through Grand Central Terminal.

"Other stadiums look so cold because they're so modern. The Yankees are bringing back the old-time stadium. I think it's time for something new, [but] if they lower the capacity they will probably have to raise the ticket prices."

"I think it's great," said construction contractor Michael Sheridan, 52, of Manhattan, who was standing nearby. "I like all the old-style ballparks that are being built, like Camden Yards [in Baltimore] and Jacobs Field [in Cleveland]."

Sheridan says he attends about 35 Yankees home games every baseball season, and he looks forward to the prospect of a new Stadium in the Bronx.

"I'd like to go just to see it," he said. "The old Stadium is sort of falling apart."

Centra Breen, 25, a Queens housekeeper, said she didn't like the idea that the new stadium will seat fewer people than the current one - the capacity will be 50,800, down from the current 57,478, but with the addition of 50 to 60 luxury suites.

"I don't like the fact that they're going to change it to less people," Breen said. "It's nice it's so modern, [but] it looks like the hard-core fans will miss the old one."

And then there is that other group of New York baseball fans, the ones whose attention is focused on Flushing Meadows in Queens.

"Unfortunately, the Mets are second fiddle once again," said Shane Powers, 28, of the upper East Side, who was sitting with four other Mets fans in Annie Moore's Bar at Vanderbilt Ave. and E. 44th St.

"It's time for the Mets ownership to step it up."

Originally published on April 17, 2005

Read the article from the New York Times

Sports Media and Business

A New Stadium (and No Debate)

BY RICHARD SANDOMIR
Published: June 10, 2005

In the coming weeks, the Yankees will call a news conference to unveil plans to build a ballpark in the Bronx that they will finance without public money for construction or discourtesy to egos and agendas in the State Legislature.

The $800 million stadium plan has been nurtured for years without the any public fulminations from the team's principal owner, George Steinbrenner, who spent time in decades past threatening to move to Manhattan or New Jersey.

The stadium will rise on parkland that is far from the vitriolic political debate between developing the Far West Side of Manhattan and redeveloping post-Sept. 11 Lower Manhattan - a trap that has ensnared advocates of the proposed $2.2 billion Jets/Olympic stadium over the West Side rail yards.

In many ways, the process of creating the new Yankees ballpark will be the antithesis of the Jets' project- suddenly moribund after being spurned Monday by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver in a vote of a potent state panel - which was the centerpiece of New York City's now close-to-impossible quest to be host to the 2012 Summer Games.

The Yankees' project has no urgent deadline (like July 6, when the International Olympic Committee is to make its host city decision); no land dispute over Macomb's Dam Park and no need to build atop a concrete platform (which the Jets' plan called for); no lengthy history of endemic opposition (like Westway); no semantic tap dancing over whether it is a stadium or a convention center (which the Jets perpetuated); and no reason for Cablevision to vehemently campaign against it (as it did to the Jets' stadium).

It's clear that the Yankees read and reacted to the trends in stadium financing against huge public subsidies that offer little in return to municipalities with better things to spend their money on. There will be about $300 million in government aid, much of it from the state to build garages, but the state will get the parking revenue.

The Yankees' project is being led by the team president, Randy Levine, a former deputy mayor under Rudolph W. Giuliani, who briefed Albany lawmakers, including Silver, about the project on Wednesday.

Charles Carrier, Silver's spokesman, said: "There were no indications of any problems. They're paying for the stadium, and the discussion was good."

Levine said: "We're working very hard to pull all the final pieces together. We expect to announce in a few weeks."

It was not long ago that the Yankees were looking to build exactly where the Jets want to be. Mario M. Cuomo, governor at the time and a former minor league ballplayer, proposed the site, and in 1993, the state unveiled a plan to build a $319 million West Side stadium. That plan went nowhere. Five years later, Giuliani waged a successful political and legal fight to block a referendum that would have let voters decide whether to use public money for a Yankees ballpark in Manhattan.

During a City Council debate on the referendum in 1998, Andrew S. Eristoff, then a Republican representing Manhattan, sounded prescient about that project or any other sports palace. He told The New York Post, "There is not going to be a new stadium in Manhattan," then added, "The outcome here is known to all of us."

But others sounded as if they could envision the Jets' stadium plight. Cuomo, in 1998, said that to build a stadium on the West Side, "You must convince the people of New York that it's a good idea."

Woody Johnson, the Jets' owner, said in late 2000: "It's going to take everybody thinking it's a good idea. Republicans, Democrats, people living on the West Side and the East Side, upstate, New Jersey."

Although some might have been persuaded, the Jets never found a consistent argument that the stadium would be a win-win proposition, then found themselves needing to react repeatedly to Cablevision's relentless news media blitz.

For some commercials, the Jets hired their Super Bowl champion quarterback Joe Namath, and their superfan, Fireman Ed, but neither had the stature to make a broad swath of the public - let alone Silver - believe firmly in the cause of the Jets, the Olympics or an expanded Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

Marc Ganis, a sports business expert who consulted for the St. Louis Rams when their stadium was being built, said that the Jets' plan needed a respected, independent public face not aligned with the team to build support for the project.

"Tom Eagleton played that role in St. Louis," Ganis said, referring to the former Missouri senator who headed a civic-business group called F.A.N.S. "He coalesced the opponents and supporters in the business and political communities. The Jets could have used someone like Daniel Patrick Moynihan, had he lived."

Moynihan, the former senator from New York, would have faced a serpentine road to an uncertain fate. But the Yankees have chosen a path without hot coals burning their feet. Their strategy - undertaken on safer turf and developed in relative quiet, shielded by the clamor over the Jets - appears to be everything that the Jets' plan wasn't.

I think this thing is for real. The new Shea stadium plan has a lot of support from key politicians. The Yankees also may garner similar support, although I'm more cautious. And the infrustructure outlays combined may not even approach that for the West Side Stadium plan. However, we're still talking about one of the most myopic areas in the country. - Transic

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/14/sports/baseball/14shea.html

Air of Subway Series in Race for Ballparks

By RICHARD SANDOMIR
Published: June 14, 2005

If all proceeds according to schedule, the Mets and the Yankees will play in April 2009 at new ballparks designed by the same architectural firm.

That would be an accident of timing. Not one major league stadium or arena has been built in the metropolitan area since 1981, when Continental Arena opened at the Meadowlands. Shea Stadium replaced the Polo Grounds in 1964 and has looked outdated almost ever since. Yankee Stadium began life in 1923 and reopened with a less distinctive look in 1976, after a two-year renovation.

Now, the region is awash with the prospect of new stadiums and arenas.

The Devils are to move into a Newark arena in 2007. The Nets are expected to be in Brooklyn for the 2008-9 season. In late 2009, after the expected openings of the baseball ballparks, the Giants are to open their new stadium.

"There's been a lot of pent-up demand, and, quite frankly, economic times are awfully good, with stable interest rates," said Jeffrey Vanderbeek, the Devils' owner. "The time is right for this. And you can't compete if you're not in there with a new arena, with naming rights and all kinds of new seating and restaurants."

The Yankees had appeared to hold a substantial lead over the Mets in planning for a new stadium. They were days from announcing their detailed plans when the city turned to the Mets last week to help salvage its bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics. The administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had hoped that the Jets would build a $2.2 billion stadium on the Far West Side of Manhattan, with $800 million in subsidies from the state and city, but state officials refused to approve it.

The Mets' principal owner, Fred Wilpon, looked confident and a bit relieved at the City Hall news conference Sunday. He announced that he would finance a new ballpark that would expand to Olympic size if the city won its 2012 bid. In quiet talks with the city, he had no reason to expect a resolution so quickly, and certainly not at virtually the same time that the Yankees were to announce their deal.

Wilpon offered no designs for the ballpark. The Yankees may show theirs to the news media as early as tomorrow. Both teams will use HOK Sport as their architect.

"Part of the difficulty all along was how to take care of both New York teams," said Adolfo Carrion Jr., the Bronx borough president. "The smarter players prevailed on this one. The fans win and the city wins."

If the city is selected to be host for the 2012 Olympics, the Mets' new 45,000-seat stadium will be temporarily reconfigured as an 80,000-seat track and field/soccer stadium, and the Mets will play that season at the new Yankee Stadium.

A determination would then have to be made on how the Mets would be compensated for a year in the Bronx.

The lower deck and dugouts of the old Yankee Stadium are to be converted for Little Leagues and high school play. Other applications are being planned for the rest of the building and the area around it.

The new Yankee Stadium is expected to look in some ways like the original 1923 design by Osborne Engineering, from the exterior to the facade along the roof. Wilpon has not said if the Mets will preserve such designs as an entrance rotunda resembling the one at Ebbets Field, which he first suggested in 1998.

The ability to make more money at their new ballparks is essential to the Yankees' and Mets' financing plans. Despite the Mets' less-storied history and historically lower attendance, they should not encounter serious problems finding as much as $700 million from banks or other institutions, financial professionals said.

"Given their cash flow and profile, it's eminently financeable," said Sal Galatioto, an investment banker who, while he was with Lehman Brothers, arranged the financing for Wilpon to buy out his former partner, Nelson Doubleday. "It's a major project, and Fred will have no shortage of people giving him ideas."

Marc Ganis, a sports finance and marketing consultant, said that with their new ballpark, the Mets would add fixed costs of at least $50 million annually to pay for the bonds they would issue to finance the stadium and operate it.

"He'll have to raise it and he can," Ganis said of Wilpon.

With a new stadium, the Mets would not have to pay the city rent, which came to about $10 million last year, and would be able to deduct their stadium payments from some of their revenue-sharing obligations to Major League Baseball.

The Mets would also presumably benefit from higher stadium revenues and a stream of money coming from a television network that they will launch next season.

The virtually simultaneous announcements of new stadiums for the Yankees and Mets does not surprise Harvey Robins, a former top aide to Mayors Edward I. Koch and David N. Dinkins. "What's surprising is the hysteria over stadiums when there are so many other infrastructure needs in the city," he said.

The Yankees are investing $800 million in the stadium, while the city and state will spend up to $300 million for infrastructure projects, the largest element being new garages to be financed by the state, which will get all the parking revenues. The city and state are to spend $180 million on infrastructure for the Mets' project.

Absolutely beautiful! - Transic

Read the article from the New York Times

Bloomberg Unveils Plans for the New Yankee Stadium

By CHARLES V. BAGLI
Published: June 15, 2005

For the second time in a week, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg unveiled plans this afternoon for a new baseball stadium in New York City: an $800 million home for the Yankees that will replicate the team's original ballpark in the Bronx, from the limestone walls and distinctive copper frieze to the placement of the bullpens in the right field.

The team plans to build an open-air stadium with 51,800 seats - although it could be expanded to 54,000 seats - and 50 to 60 luxury suites in Macombs Dam Park, across 161st Street from the team's historic home. It will be smaller than the existing stadium, which has 56,937 seats and about 18 luxury boxes.

"Wow, what a week for baseball and what week for New York City," Mr. Bloomberg said at a news conference. "I'm thrilled that we've reached this agreement to build this stunning stadium."

Randy Levine, president of New York Yankees, said this afternoon that the project would "benefit the Bronx" by ensuring that no businesses or residents would be displaced, by renovating the areas around the stadium, and by creating thousands of new jobs.

The design, by the architectural firm of Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum, would restore many of the signature features of the original 82-year-old stadium that were wiped out by the 1976 renovation, and it would retain the same field dimensions and dugouts, according to two executives who have seen the plans.

"This will give everybody the feel of what people who in 1923 went to see the Yankees saw," Mr. Levine said.

The announcement, made jointly this afternoon by Mr. Bloomberg, Gov. George E. Pataki of New York and George Steinbrenner, the principal owner of the Yankees, comes only three days after a similar proclamation by the mayor and the Mets concerning plans to build a new stadium in Queens for about $700 million. That stadium would also be used for the Olympics if the city wins its bid for the 2012 Games.

The Yankee Stadium project is part of a broader redevelopment plan, initiated by the Bronx borough president, Adolfo Carrión Jr., that includes a hotel, conference center and high school for sports-related careers.

"It's exciting," Mr. Carrión said Tuesday. "With the plan for Jets stadium falling out of the equation, it presented an opportunity to take care of two New York teams. I'm glad the administration has stepped forward and supported the Bronx community plan. We need to create a win-win situation, and I think this will do that."

The Yankees, one of the most valuable franchises in sports, have agreed to pay all construction, operating and maintenance costs for the stadium. The city and state will spend an estimated $220 million on work related to the stadium, bringing the total cost to more than $1 billion.

The state has agreed to spend up to $75 million to build three or four parking garages, which will add up to 5,000 new spaces, and to do some road work. The team says that the cost of the garages will be more than covered by game-day parking fees.

The city is expected to spend about $135 million to replace the roughly 17 acres of Macombs Dam Park and Mullaly Park that the new stadium will occupy with a 28-acre waterfront park along the Harlem River, Mr. Bloomberg said. The Parks Department will replace the running track, soccer field and tennis, handball and basketball courts that were in the parks with new and additional fields, some of which will be atop the garages.

The Jets' plan to build a $2.2 billion stadium on Manhattan's Far West Side collapsed last week, but the Yankees have chosen to follow a different route in their attempt to build a stadium. They have put their project through the city's lengthy land-use review process, rather than attempt to bypass it. Unlike the Jets, the Yankees have yet to encounter opposition.

In their new stadium, the Yankees plan to place about 30,000 seats on the first level and 20,000 in the second level, giving more fans a closer view of the field than the current stadium provides.

Most of the current Yankee Stadium will not fall to the wrecking ball. The city plans to preserve at least the existing baseball field, the dugouts and the first level of the stands for Little League and high school use.

"I'm sure they'll have limos or vans to take the ghosts over to the new ballpark," Yankees Manager Joe Torre said.

Although the new stadium, like the old one, will go up on city-owned land, the team will not pay rent or property taxes under the terms of the deal with the city and the state. The Yankees and the Mets have existing leases with the city that are widely regarded as especially favorable to the teams. From 2000 through 2004, the Yankees paid a total of $26.43 million in rent, or a little more than $5 million a year.

To finance the construction, the city and the state would create a local development corporation that would issue tax-free bonds, which would be paid off by the Yankees. That allows the team to save an estimated $12.8 million a year in financing costs, although it reduces tax revenue.

The announcements are a remarkable postscript to Mr. Bloomberg's declaration in 2002 that the city could not afford to build sports stadiums, given more pressing municipal needs. Today, the New York area is awash in plans for stadiums and arenas, with new homes planned for the Mets, the Yankees and the Nets in New York City, and the MetroStars, the Devils, the Giants and, maybe, the Jets in New Jersey.

A 1996 report by the city comptroller estimated that professional sporting events account for only 0.7 percent of the region's economy.

The deals for the Yankees and the Mets are far less generous today than in 2001, when Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani came to a tentative agreement with the two teams. Mr. Giuliani agreed to pay half the cost of building $800 million stadiums with retractable roofs for the Yankees and the Mets. Each team, in turn, agreed to pay the city 4 percent of the annual gate receipts.

Shadi Rahimi contributed reporting for this article.

Good to see the two teams get their parks within 24 hours or so from each other...the parks, I'm sure, will be pretty spectacular...I still can't help but daydream what a Yankee (heck, even a Met) Stadium might've looked like in swanky Manhattan...then again, as long as the new parks are accessible by subway (and I'm sure they will be), then I guess it's all good...

Read the article from the New York Times

Sports of The Times

New Yankee Stadium Needs Same Old Feeling

By GEORGE VECSEY
Published: June 23, 2005

DAY game in the Bronx. Children shrieking for the Yankees. The eccentric configuration of Yankee Stadium. A flicker of the elevated train out past right field.

That was yesterday, as the Yankees were ambushed by the Devil Rays, 5-3. In some ways, it could have been 1923, when the original Yankee Stadium opened, but in another way it could have been 2009, when, theoretically, the new Yankee Stadium will open just a few yards to the north.

"That's Yankee Stadium," said Lonn Trost, the chief operating officer of the Yankees, nodding toward yesterday's game, taking place below his office window, high behind home plate.

"And that's Yankee Stadium," Trost said, pointing to a blueprint on his desk. "There are the bleachers," he added, turning his head toward the distant 2005 bleachers. "And there are the bleachers," he said, pointing his head to the 2009 bleachers on the blueprint.

Continuity lives in the Bronx. Can't think of a better place for it. Since 1923, when they opened the House That Ruth Built, there have been two versions of this stadium on the same footprint at 161st Street and River Avenue, just west of Jerome Avenue, just east of the Harlem River.

But now, using some of George Steinbrenner's dimes, a new stadium is being planned north of the current one. In a world gone mad with stadium dreams and luxury-box fever, the Mets and the Yankees are planning new stadiums for the same year.

One can imagine two competing crews, one in the Bronx, one in Queens, like some gigantic Mayor's Trophy Construction Game, trying to see which ballpark is done first: Steinbrenner wearing his hard hat in the Bronx, goading steelworkers, and Fred Wilpon encamped in a trailer in Queens, supervising the midnight shift of concrete-pourers.

At least these two ownerships are paying for the two stadiums, although the city and state will pay for infrastructure and other breaks. For businesses that open their doors 81 times a year, it's a reasonable bargain, particularly after the mercifully defeated boondoggle of the hideous West Side hybrid. (Was it an Olympic and football stadium? Was it an all-purpose arena? Was it a convention center?)

After the ticky-tacky Shea Stadium, which opened in 1964, the Mets' new place will have to conform to some needs of a potential Olympic stadium, at least until the International Olympic Committee picks the 2012 host on July 6.

Wilpon once had ambitious blueprints for a retro stadium that recalled the Ebbets Field of his Brooklyn childhood (with a rotunda, no less), but they were stalled for years because of negotiations with the city. Wilpon has my permission to make the Mets' new ballpark as architecturally quirky as he dares. Pay homage to the auto chop shops that fester behind right field. Bring back the late and lamented Serval Zippers sign behind center field. Or go for graceful arching stands like the ones at new soccer stadiums around the world. Go for it. It's bound to be an improvement, even though Wilpon has said he will sell out and take a corporate name for the stadium.

On the other hand, there are not many verities left in sports, and baseball needs the Big Ballpark in the Bronx (as Mel Allen called it).

Trost said "the Steinbrenner family" - the Boss and the next generation - instructed the architects and builders: "We want Yankee Stadium. We were born here, we were bred here, and hopefully we will succeed here. We want the Yankee Stadium history. We want the Yankee Stadium tradition. Throughout our organization, we train our players for Yankee Stadium."

There is more to Yankee Stadium than the short porches in right and left, the power alleys, the distant center-field fence. Even those of us who have never been Yankee fans respect the awe that fans and visiting ballplayers (like Tony Gwynn, camera in hand, sightseeing during the 1998 World Series) display when they walk into the old place.

"The Yankees have managed to propose a stadium design that has neither the charm of the rickety old stadiums nor the energy and power of the most innovative," Nicolai Ouroussoff, the architecture critic, wrote in The New York Times last Thursday.

There are so many good fights to be fought in urban design. Smart people have botched plans for downtown and the West Side. With all due respect to knowledgeable people, let us praise continuity.

Not always known for taste, the Yankees score points by retaining the grand old name Yankee Stadium. Management is planning only 17,000 seats in the upper deck and nearly 32,000 seats in the lower level, compared with the current makeup of 25,300 seats on the first level and 28,300 in the two upper decks. There will be a single tier of luxury boxes, avoiding the modern excess of a second layer that has doomed Arthur Ashe Stadium at the National Tennis Center into a sterile, joyless cavern.

"We are taking a 1953 Corvette and putting in 2009 guts," Trost said, promising "whatever will be current at that time."

The Yanks need not always win - it says here - but for the sake of baseball, there should always be a Yankee Stadium that feels like Yankee Stadium.

E-mail: geovec@nytimes.com

http://www.nolandgrab.org/articles/sbj_zimbalist.htm

The Final Word
Big Apple can take a shine to this new threesome of sports facilities

Andrew Zimbalist

If bad news always happens in threes, then New York City is providing the exception to the rule.

No sooner had Sheldon Silver, speaker of the New York State Assembly, vetoed the use of $300 million of state money to finance the Jets' stadium on Manhattan's West Side than the Yankees and the Mets announced plans for privately funded new stadiums.

The Yanks and Mets now join the Ratner arena plan for Brooklyn to provide the prospect for three new sports facilities opening in the five boroughs during 2008-09.

Over the last 15 years, the public share in total stadium development (facility plus infrastructure) costs has averaged around 70 percent. In each of these three New York facilities, the public share is below 25 percent.

The Mets are going to spend roughly $700 million for a new stadium next door to Shea, in Queens. The city and state together are going to chip in about $180 million for infrastructure.

In this case, the infrastructure is mostly directly beneficial to the Mets rather than the general public. Nonetheless, the explicit public share of the total development cost of the new facility is 20.45 percent.

The Yankees are planning to spend $800 million for their stadium, next door to the present one in the Bronx. The city and state together will pay out around $240 million, roughly 23 percent of the total.

A large chunk of this infrastructure spending is for public purpose: the reconstruction and expansion of Macombs Dam Park, the parking facility, the boat slip and Metro North platform. Game-day parking revenues will all go to the state (unlike the Mets' arrangement, where the money goes to the team) and will more than pay for the $70 million state investment.

Moreover, the new development will facilitate the extension of the gentrification frontier naturally from Manhattan into the south Bronx.

The Nets will occupy a $500 million arena at Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn that is part of a 21-acre, $3.5 billion residential and commercial development being undertaken by Bruce Ratner. In this case, the city and state will contribute $200 million in infrastructure money, or less than 6 percent of the total project costs. (Full disclosure: I am a consultant to Ratner.)

In all three cases a substantial portion of the funding will come from tax-exempt bonds issued by newly created local development corporations. Debt service on these bonds will be covered by the teams via PILOTS (payments in lieu of taxes) to the LDCs.

Some may object that if the teams cover the debt service instead of paying taxes, then, in effect, the public treasury is paying for the bonds and the facility through forfeited tax collections.

This objection was valid in the case of the vetoed West Side stadium for the Jets. However, it applies only to a small degree for the Yankees, Mets and Nets.

The difference for the latter three is that the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn are all in tax-abatement zones. (Manhattan is not.)

Under a commercial incentive program, all commercial developers in these boroughs do not have to pay real estate taxes on new projects for 15 years. After that, the tax is phased in at 10 percent a year for 10 years, and only in years 26-30 are full taxes assessed.

I estimate the present value of the taxes that are being replaced by the PILOTS for the Yankees, Mets and Nets at $44 million, $39 million and $21 million, respectively. Thus, for instance, it could be argued that the Yankees are paying $756 million out of the $800 million for stadium construction and the Mets are paying $661 million out of the roughly $700 million for their new ballpark.

All three teams will benefit from an exemption on the sales tax on materials used during construction, but this is a typical allowance in large-scale construction projects in New York.

Of course, the Yankees and the Mets will benefit from the MLB provision allowing them to deduct stadium capital and operating costs from their local revenue before revenue-sharing taxes are assessed.

The Nets case is a bit different. The NBA has no program to subsidize team arena construction. Further, the Ratner project includes not only $500 million of private funds for the arena but also an additional $3 billion in private funds for residential and commercial development.

When sports facilities are funded with public money, the construction project itself generally does not add to the local economy. This is because the public spending on the stadiums is offset by the higher taxes which lead to less disposable income and less spending by the local households.

In contrast, the three proposed New York facilities will be funded overwhelmingly with private funds that will constitute new money to the local economy. There will be a net increase in local employment and income.

In the cases of the Yankees and Mets, the city also benefits because it no longer has to cover rising maintenance costs at aging facilities. These costs have been running around $10 million annually at Yankee Stadium in recent years and nearly that high at Shea.

In the end, as in all large-scale construction projects, there will be some detractors. Yet back in 2001, Rudy Giuliani reached a tentative deal with the Yankees and Mets for the public to cover 50 percent of stadium construction costs.

Compared with the typical deal in the sports industry and previous proposals in New York, the new facility plans for the Yanks, Mets and Nets are good news indeed.

Andrew Zimbalist is Robert Woods Professor of Economics at Smith College.

Meanwhile, the Mets are asking for ideas for what to include in their new stadium plan - Transic

Read the article from the New York Daily News

A new Shea is one fine idea
By Filip Bondy


Fred Wilpon says he can smell the hot dogs, that he can see clearly the old-style rotunda in his dreams.

"I swear, I get teary-eyed just thinking about walking into the place," he was saying yesterday, before Tom Glavine pitched the Mets to a 7-3 rout over San Diego. "It will be the same feel as Ebbets Field. The same feel."

Wilpon was talking about the next Shea Stadium, the one that will shoot like bamboo from the adjacent parking lot and jut from a mesa of car repair shops at Willets Point. The place will be very shiny, and new, and retro, and it will be ready to glow on Opening Day 2009.

That's the $750 million plan, anyway, about 80% of that money coming from the Wilpon ownership group. And on a night like last night, when paint-starved Shea was nearly half empty and the Mets deserved better, that plan sounded pretty good.

The old Shea is a giant, cacophonous dumpster for long fly balls. The new one is all architectural potential, at the moment. In the mind's eye, the 45,000-seat park has nooks and crannies, short porches and exquisite bleacher views. It doesn't matter anymore that there are no Olympic Games comin' round the mountain. A ballpark is a ballpark, and can now be even more so.

The new Shea will be a giant leap forward, and backward, at the same time. But human nature demands more. The people who will populate that park, a half-decade from now, want to know: What's in it for us?

Reporters covet the perfect press box, cool and quiet and waterproof, with easy access to the clubhouse. Players imagine the ideal trainer's room, private and well equipped. Wilpon asked a few of the Brooklyn Cyclones, the prospects who may be playing there, what they wanted from the new park. He found they were too young, and not that specific.

Others have ideas, though - selfish ideas, which are always the best ones.

"The general manager's office should look out onto the field," Omar Minaya said.

Minaya happens to be the GM. His office currently overlooks the back end of a section of seats. How can he know when to fire a coach, trade a player?

He had another idea, too.

"Interactive, fan-friendly communications," he says. The spectators would get a computer screen on the back of seats so they'd be able to write thank-you E-mails to Minaya.

Minaya likes to play this game, which was once Bobby Valentine's favorite pastime. Valentine helped design the Ballpark in Arlington, and he had this vision for a moving walkway that would allow standing-room spectators to get a 360-degree view of the field during the course of a game.

Others have shallower eyesight. When they were building the Meadowlands Arena, architects asked Julius Erving for some input. He had but one suggestion: High shower heads. That story inspires David Wright, one of maybe three Met players who figure to be around for that Opening Day in 2009.

"We need to bring the shower heads from here, over there," Wright said. "We have double shower heads."

Wright also wants to cut down the foul grounds, inviting the fans into the game, like at Yankee Stadium.

"The opposite of Oakland," Wright said. "And personally, I'd like to see short fences like in Philly. A short porch in right."

Smaller foul acreage equals higher batting averages. A short porch equals more homers.

"Well, yes, there's a greedy side," Wright admitted.

Carlos Beltran wants a dome over the top, which he won't get. Beltran gets cold. He is from Manati, Puerto Rico, where it never snows one week before Opening Day.

"Players do not get hurt if there is a dome," Beltran said. "And there's no rainouts."

He also wants the indoor batting cage closer to the clubhouse. The walk at old Shea is too long.

Then there is the indelicate question about the dirt. Willie Randolph says the grounds crew at Shea is "working its butt off" to improve the dirt, but that the Shea infield still ranks "low on the totem pole." Derek Jeter calls Shea one of the three worst infields in the majors - along with Fenway and Kansas City.

But the new Shea, surely it will be different. No bad hops. Just perfect bounces and well-pitched games like last night. A rotunda. Freshly painted seats.

The distinct odor of Brooklyn hot dogs.

Originally published on July 21, 2005

April promises to be the critical month in which the viability of the ballpark projects in NYC may be decided once and for all time. There's been a lot of noise leading up to the big decisions. And the controversy won't go away long afterwards. - Transic

Click on the link to read the article from NY Newsday

Critics, supporters of Yankee stadium proposal spar at hearing

BY MELANIE LEFKOWITZ
Newsday Staff Writer

March 29, 2006

NEW YORK -- One of the Yankees' all-time heaviest hitters faced a hostile home crowd at a public hearing Tuesday on the team's proposed new $800-million state-of-the-art stadium in the Bronx.

"When Randy asked me to do this, I didn't know we were 2 and 0," quipped Reggie Jackson, the Hall of Fame slugger who is a team adviser, referring to Randy Levine, president of the Yankees.

The Yankees have offered a trust of $28 million and $200,000 a year in givebacks -- which Levine described as the most generous private investment in a community in city history -- for the right to build the new stadium on existing parkland.

"Ask for help, and I do believe you will get it," Jackson, 60, told members of a City Council subcommittee in a speech that touched on his own experiences driving through Harlem and on Yankee owner George Steinbrenner's gruff exterior but soft heart. "I do look for you to become engaged, and I do look for the Yankees to respond to your request, if you look them in the eye and ask."

Though many Bronx leaders support the new stadium, others fault the Yankees for not giving enough, and for failing to give more in leaner years.

"I look around and I see the Yankee organization and the Yankee fans smiling as though you hit a home run, and from where I'm sitting it looks like a foul ball," said Councilwoman Helen Foster (D-Bronx) who represents the district where Yankee Stadium is located and said she plans to vote against the deal. "It is a very different Bronx County than when you were here, Mr. October. ... This is the richest team in baseball, and you should have been doing this generous package years ago."

The subcommittee will vote next week, followed by the full council. In a statement released late Tuesday, Councilwoman Maria Baez, head of the council's Bronx delegation, said "negotiations with the Yankees are progressing towards conclusion."

The deal's sticking points include the destruction of parkland -- the city will spend $130 million under the plan to create slightly more parkland nearby, but opponents counter that the parks are too far away and should not be built atop a parking garage -- and the addition of about 3,000 parking spots, which residents fear will increase traffic.

Tuesday's hearing drew a raucous standing-room-only crowd, with an audience full of hard hats and Yankees hats that was frequently admonished for cheers, boos and cries of "Keep it real, Reggie." It turned at times into a referendum on race as Jackson, who described himself as "a minority first," sparred with some council members.

Levine was grilled about how many minority executives the Yankees employ, sparking a shouting match, and Councilman Tom White (D-Queens) digressed briefly about differences between blacks, whites and Latinos.

"The Yankees have been in the Bronx for 83 years, and the South Bronx is designated as the most impoverished county in the nation," said Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn). "Why do we think that we're going to be treated right after they didn't treat us right for 83 years?"

"Councilman, I would say you're probably short on your years. Most of the people would think that we've been not treated well for an awfully long time," Jackson replied.






Demonstrators gathered at City Hall before today's public hearing on the new Yankee Stadium plan. The chambers and steps were filled with demonstrators both in favor and against the new stadium proposal.
(Newsday photo/ Alejandra Villa)
Mar. 28, 2006


Former Yankee player Reggie Jackson (left) and Yankee president Randy Levine give testimony in favor of the new Yankee Stadium proposal during today's public hearing at City Hall. The chambers and steps at City Hall were filled with demonstrators both in favor and against the new stadium proposal.
(Newsday photo/ Alejandra Villa)
Mar. 28, 2006

Click on the link to read the article from New York Newsday

Yankee Stadium deal passes City Council vote

BY BRYAN VIRASAMI
Newsday Staff Writer

April 6, 2006

As the Yankees' 2006 season gets under way, the City Council yesterday gave the team a significant push toward erecting a brand new $800 million ballpark next door to the existing one -- a project some say is a symbol of renewal in the Bronx even as many decry the elimination of a public park.

With community activists and some pro-jobs construction workers watching, the council voted overwhelmingly to approve a litany of land use items 45-2, and 44-3 with two abstentions for the 53,000-seat stadium. As a result, the Yankees may be able to break ground on the new stadium as early as next month if tax-free bonds to pay for it are approved later this month.

"This is a great day," Yankees President Randy Levine said moments after the vote. "There's more work to be done, but it shows that people all over the city, especially in the Bronx, believe in this project, believe in the new jobs it will create, the new opportunities it will create and hopefully when we get into the building, we can win a few more World Series."

The vote came a day before design plans for the Mets' new proposed stadium are to be unveiled.

Two council members, Charles Barron of Brooklyn and Helen Foster of the Bronx, voted against the main bill, arguing concessions by the Yankees failed to go far enough to tackle poverty and economic blight in the South Bronx.

Foster, the lone Council member from the Bronx to vote against the stadium, said residents in the area feel neglected by the team's past record.

"The richest team in baseball doesn't have a presence outside of that stadium," said Foster, whose district borders the ballpark. "It's time for the Yankee organization to stop throwing crumbs to the community."

But Majority Leader Joel Rivera of the Bronx said the benefits outweigh the losses, citing jobs and potential economic revival to the area. "I think it's a great opportunity. Our kids deserve it," Rivera said.

Among the items in the so-called community benefits agreement negotiated with officials, the Yankees agreed to launch a $1 million apprentice program to train people for construction jobs and other skills, with at least 25 percent of the participants coming from the Bronx, Rivera said.

In addition, the city intends to spend millions to create new parks, since the plan will erase two existing parks. And the Yankees will donate 15,000 tickets a year to non-profit groups and fund other programs to help local residents.

Levine said the organization was open to further discussions over concerns about the parks and other issues.

"We are open, we've been meeting with the entire delegation, we are open to ideas," Levine said, adding the team wants to "generate as much consensus as possible."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he was pleased with the vote.

"The plan represents a commitment by the city to create new parks and recreation facilities and infrastructure improvements that will improve the quality of life for all residents," he said. "This is a critical investment that is expected to generate considerable economic and fiscal benefits during both construction and operation of the new stadium including an estimated 3,600 construction jobs, and result in about 900 permanent jobs."

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn hailed the plan, saying it addresses some of her concerns, such as parking spaces with 3,000 new spots and the plan to build a new Metro-North train stop near the stadium.





Building trade and other workers rally in support of the proposed new Yankee Stadium outside of City Hall Wednesday.
(Scout Tufankjian)
Apr. 5, 2006

Click on the link to read this column from SI.com

Brace for the inevitable
Yankees soon will say goodbye to venerable Stadium
Posted: Thursday April 27, 2006 12:53PM; Updated: Thursday April 27, 2006 2:49PM

As it gets greener and lovelier in New York, a new season of memories begins to unfold for baseball fans visiting the big ballyard in the Bronx. Yankee Stadium is the grandest of all the old-time great parks, and though the year got off to an odd start when longtime public address announcer Bob Sheppard missed his first home stand since 1951 with a broken hip, the Big Stage has plenty to offer, including a new name for the Bleacher Creatures' roll call -- rock star Johnny Damon.

Yeah, they haven't won a World Series since 2000, but the Bombers are in the playoffs every year and are the city's most stable franchise. A generation of kids is growing up without ever knowing what it was like for the Yankees to be a losing team.

Everything is golden in Yankee land, but looming just under the surface is the reality that a new ballpark is coming and we are seeing the waning days of the House that Ruth Built. For better or worse, it is a wake-up call to everyone who visits the Stadium over the next couple of summers: Soak it all in while you can, because it's not going to be around much longer.

The first question is: Why do the Yankees need a new stadium? Just last year the team set the all-time attendance mark. Well, picture Zero Mostel in The Producers leaning over to Leo Bloom, answering that question: MONEY. The Yankees don't need a new park, they just want one, and it looks like now they will finally have one.

Though it opened in 1923, Yankee Stadium was renovated, completely made-over, in the mid 1970s (becoming the House that George Rebuilt), so it's not like the building is that much of a relic.

"They are fine, structurally [with Yankee Stadium]," observes historian Glenn Stout, author of Yankee Century. "What they lack are the 'modern' amenities teams want. Today's ballpark is not a place to play baseball -- that's completely secondary. It's just a delivery system for food, beverage and memorabilia, and a facility for business -- luxury boxes and really expensive seats. The ballplayers are the equivalent of strippers on the stage to get people inside to pay extravagant cover charges and $20 for a light beer."

The Cardinals opened a new park this spring. It should come as no surprise that the Yankees are on the bandwagon. They are U.S. Steel or Microsoft, after all, right? Why wouldn't they fall in line with everybody else in baseball and build a state-of-the-art, multifaceted, money-churning theme park? Sooner or later it was going to happen, as it will eventually in Boston and Chicago, too.

It's easy to be offended by the economic realities of the situation -- heck, I come from a liberal family on the Upper West Side, so I know from righteous indignation -- but in the long run, what's the point? I hate to cop out, but being a Watergate baby and a product of the Reagan era, I'm predisposed to expect the cynical, sell-out move. However, there are sure to be Yankees fans and New York taxpayers who are upset about the new facility.

And what of this new park? The scoreboard will be bigger, better and louder (though I shudder at the thought). It will probably feel like the new Times Square -- synthetic, perhaps, but still New York, so still spectacular. The Monuments will have a new home, the facade will be brought over, and there will be a new landscape to digest.

Neil DeMause, who writes about the economics of the game for BaseballProspectus.com, says, "The outside is going to look like Yankee Stadium in 1923 on steroids. That's the shell. In between the facade and the seating bowl will be an enormous shopping concourse. That's what the Yankees are really after. When they say they can't renovate the current stadium, they are talking about concessions stands and restaurants. The attempt is to bring all the money that Yankees fans are spending into Yankee Stadium. The intent is to take away business that fans would spend on the street outside the stadium. I'm sure they'll have some locals run some stands in the new park, but they'll pay serious rent to the Yankees."

Inside, the park will be smaller, but not necessarily more intimate. Following the current trend, the new stadium will be geared toward luxury boxes, losing close to 6,000 seats in the process. Chris Isodore of CNNMoney.com recently detailed why it makes economic sense for teams to reduce seating capacity in their new parks: "The team ... hopes that by limiting the supply of tickets, it will create some scarcity and give fans the incentive to buy tickets in advance. As long as the 10,000 lousy seats were available upstairs, fans knew they could always show up and find the better seats available for sale at the last minute."

This might not be a problem for the Yankees now, but what about when the team goes through a losing period? For all of the economic benefits the team will enjoy in their new deal, what will be sacrificed in terms of atmosphere?

"One of the joys of Yankee Stadium today is that you can sit in the tier boxes and still be really close to the action," says Yankees blogger Benjamin Kabak, who has followed the story for Double Play Depth. "The upper deck hangs over the box seats. In the new stadium, the upper deck is much more recessed. Fans won't have that same feeling of closeness and intimacy. With an increase in prices that is sure to accompany a new stadium, I think the fans are getting left out here while George's pockets will reap the benefits."

DeMause adds, "Yankee Stadium holds a lot of people, but it's very compact. The tier boxes at Yankee stadium are some the best seats in baseball."

Some of my favorite Stadium memories are of sitting in the lower section of the tier behind home plate -- Bobby Murcer hitting an extra-inning home run against the Orioles in the early '80s, watching Kent Hrbeck plant bomb after bomb in the right-field upper deck during batting practice and, just a few years ago, seeing Juan Encarnacion launch a flat sinker from Ramiro Mendoza into the left-field bleachers.

As with the passing of many great institutions, there will be a good deal of loss when the current Stadium is retired. We've grown accustom to the place, warts and all -- the lousy bathrooms, forgettable concessions and jam-packed runways. So how difficult will it be to see the place go? "Change equals Death," Woody Allen once wrote. But while most New Yorkers like to bemoan change, we are also quick to adapt. I was initially distressed when I heard the news about the new Yankee Stadium last year, but also somehow relieved. At least the team wouldn't be relocated to New Jersey, which had been discussed ad nauseam back in the '80s.

Yankee Stadium is filled with the ghosts of Yankees past, even though the place today is quite different from the one DiMaggio and Ruth played in. You can sit in the Stadium now and see Monument Park and imagine what the place looked like when they were in the field of play, when Death Valley was really Death Valley. Yet there have been plenty of great memories generated by Steinbrenner's teams, too, starting with Chris Chambliss' pennant-winning homer in 1976, continuing through the Joe Torre years.

The uniqueness of Yankee Stadium will be altered when the new place is put up, but not lost completely -- just rearranged, altered. There will be a pastiche of the past there and it will still be populated by New Yorkers. And it is the New York fans who are ultimately responsible for the kinetic energy of the place.

"The function of baseball, game and business, is to manufacture memories," wrote Leonard Koppett, the legendary sports writer. "That can't change." The new park will be different, and for some worse. But it will be what we've got, and new memories will be created there. And hey, at least it's not in Jersey.


Alex Belth is the founder and co-author of Bronx Banter. His biography of Curt Flood, "Stepping Up: The Story of All-Star Curt Flood and His Fight for Baseball Players' Rights," is available on Amazon.com.

What a poorly researched article. Someone should e-mail the guy who wrote it. The Red Sox are rebuilding fenway park for the very long term. By 2012 the 100th anniversary the new owners will have gutted all of the lower bowl and have a new seating bowl in place. They already spent 100 million on upgrading fenway. Basically fenway will be a historic park yet a new ballpark with all the modern ammenities. The Cubs already redid the bleachers and are adding a triangle building next to Wrigley with all the shops and restraunts of a modern park. If the seating bowl becomes unsafe/too disgusting they simply will gut it like the bosox. The reason Yankee stadium is getting torn down is because it is an ugly 70's park that was wrecked 30 years ago.

quote:

And it is the New York fans who are ultimately responsible for the kinetic energy of the place.

I just got back from a trip to Boston and was privileged enough to attend the Devil Rays-red Sox game on a Thursday evening (Scott Kazmir and the D-Rays won 5-1), and I can tell you for a fact that it is FANS who make a ballgame, not the park itself! Sure, Fenway is replete with history and quirks, but it is not "beautiful" in the sense of being new, or having modern features such as spacious concourses and lots of luxury suites and majestic views, and all the other stuff that most owners seem to feel their stadiums have GOT to have. What Fenway does is focus on doing and promoting one thing well, and that's BASEBALL. It creates an atmosphere and a setting that revives and invigorates every good image and feel for the game, and the fans there revel in it. I was amazed at the buzz of the crowd that filled that park the whole game long! These were fans who were passionate about their team, and the game, who were joyous just to be there, and it was an electric feeling that permeated everything and everyone around you. The only other place I have ever been that I sensed that same sort of passion and love for the game was St. Louis, and that was in the (now) old Busch Stadium, one of the old "cookie-cutter" stadiums, so I can tell you that it is NOT the stadium that makes a baseball game truly memorable - it is the FANS who bring their love for the game to the park!

Baseball owners better recognize this. If George and his minions want a new stadium in the Bronx because it doesn't have all the amenities that the newer parks have, fine - but in the end, he will be catering to the lust for wealth, not the experience of the game and the joy and excitement of the fans, which is the game's strength.

Click on the link to read the article from the NY Times

Approvals Clear Way for Yankees to Build

By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
Published: July 22, 2006

The proposed $800 million ballpark for the New York Yankees received final regulatory approval this week, clearing the way for the club to start construction atop two parks across the street from the existing stadium.

Yankees officials said they hoped to begin building the 53,000-seat structure by the end of summer.

Construction will involve paving over large portions of Macombs Dam Park and Mullaly Park and cutting down about 400 mature oak trees. The stadium is scheduled to open in 2009.

"The Yankees are delighted with the wide-ranging support they've received," said Howard J. Rubenstein, a spokesman for the Yankees.

The project, which was approved by the City Council this spring, engendered intense opposition among many of the stadium's South Bronx neighbors and from parks advocates, who protested the loss of the two popular parks and feared increased traffic and pollution problems in an area with high childhood asthma rates.

While the stadium won the support of nearly all of the Bronx's elected officials, the plan was rejected by the local community board, which had only advisory power. Several of the dissenting community board members were later replaced by the Bronx borough president, Adolfo Carrión Jr., who emerged as the new stadium's most forceful advocate.

Opponents say they will probably file a lawsuit to halt construction, contending that portions of the 28-acre Macombs Dam Park and 18.5-acre Mullaly Park had been unlawfully taken from the public.

"Since Day 1, everything has been predicated on satisfying the desires of the Yankees without a care for the community or the city's taxpayers," said Geoffrey M. Croft, president of NYC Park Advocates.

During the past week, the Internal Revenue Service and the National Park Service gave their approval, respectively, to the stadium's financing plan and to its construction on parkland. The park service approval was required because Macombs Dam Park received about $420,000 in federal improvement funds in the early 1980's.

The park service concluded that the neighborhood's loss of Macombs Dam Park would be offset by new parkland the project would provide, including three ball fields at the current Yankee Stadium, which will be partly torn down; a park on the Bronx River; and small parks placed atop stadium garages.

The I.R.S. approved the stadium's complex financing plan, in which the ballpark will be paid for by the Yankees with $920 million in tax-exempt, low-interest city bonds and $25 million in taxable bonds. The Yankees will repay the 40-year bonds with an annual payment in lieu of taxes. The bonds are to be offered in the next few weeks, said Janel Patterson, a spokeswoman for the city's Economic Development Corporation.

The Yankees will pay rent on the city-owned stadium, as well as payments in lieu of taxes, Ms. Patterson said. The city and state will pay for infrastructure improvements, including new parking garages and possibly a Metro-North commuter station in the area.

The final community benefits agreement between the Yankees and Bronx elected officials calls for the club to establish the Bronx Community Trust Fund, in which the team will place $32 million over 40 years "” about $800,000 a year. The fund, which will be managed by an administrator who will be chosen by the team and by Bronx elected officials, will be distributed to local community and nonprofit groups.

The Yankees will also donate $100,000 in equipment and promotional merchandise to community and school groups and give away 15,000 tickets to home games. The average value of each ticket will be $25.

The community benefits agreement also calls for 25 percent of stadium construction work to go to Bronx businesses, with 50 percent of that total reserved for businesses owned by women or minorities.

Click on the link to read the article from MLB.com

08/14/2006 8:24 PM ET
Yankees to break ground on stadium
Date is exactly 58 years after the death of Babe Ruth
By Ryan Mink / MLB.com

NEW YORK -- It won't be until 2009 when the Yankees will first play in the new Yankee Stadium. But they'll take their first step on Wednesday morning, culminating years of planning.

The Yankees will break ground just across the street from the current Yankee Stadium in Macombs Dam Park at 10 a.m. ET, followed by a groundbreaking ceremony.

The date, Aug. 16, is already significant because it's the same day Babe Ruth died 58 years ago. But it will undoubtedly be remembered for more.

The $800 million project will replace the third-oldest park in baseball and is part of a larger plan to revitalize the Bronx.

"We decided we want to stay in the Bronx. We want to do the job here," Yankees principle owner George Steinbrenner said when the stadium's plans were unveiled more than a year ago. "We wanted to do something for the people who've always supported this team."

The new Yankee Stadium will have 51,000 seats and will be completely paid for and maintained by the Yankees organization. New York City previously covered maintenance costs. The City will contribute $205 million to build 28 acres of recreational facilities around the stadium and build new public structures.

The new Yankee Stadium was designed by Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum (HOK) Sport-Venue-Event, who also crafted such retro stadiums as Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, Minute Maid Park in Houston and PNC Park in Pittsburgh.

While the park will add more luxury suites and wider concourses, it also will keep some of the most-sacred aspects of current Yankee Stadium. Monument Park will be relocated, and artist renderings showed the familiar white façade will still be part of the design.

The new stadium will have the same field dimensions and bullpen placement. It also will include some of the original features from before extensive renovations from 1973-75.

"We lost many of the great characteristics of the original house," Yankees president Randy Levine said when the plans were released. "The new stadium will take us back to our origins. This isn't the end of the legacy, but a continuation."

Ryan Mink is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Tomorrow Will Mark the Beginning of the End for House That Ruth Built

quote:

Depending on your point of view, tomorrow will be a day that Ruth rolls in his grave, or smiles from Heaven.

58 years to the date of Ruth's death, groundbreaking for New Yankee Stadium will occur across the street from the stadium called The House That Ruth Built. The ground will be broken at 10am EST followed by a groundbreaking ceremony at Macombs Dam Park.

...

At the Babe's funeral on a hot and sticky August day 48 years ago, former teammate Joe Dugan said, "I'd give a hundred dollars for a cold beer right now." Waite Hoyt responded, "So would the Babe." Somehow, I think that tomorrow will be much the same.

There will be no victory such as in Boston with Save Fenway Park. When Yankee Stadium comes down it will mark a closing chapter in New York's historic baseball past. Think about it: No more Polo Grounds. No more Ebbets Field. No more Yankee Stadium. The last vestiges of New York's original holy trinity of ballparks will be gone. Ballparks no longer seem to have the shelf life that they once did. The odds that we'll see another ballpark with the history of Yankee Stadium, or Fenway, or Wrigley, pessimistically seems remote. Maybe Camden Yards will become the next of these historic green cathedrals, but it I have little doubt that it will never have the historic implications that Yankee Stadium has given all the monumental events, players, and championships that have transpired there.

Its swan song is looking like the All-Star game, and no doubt many tears will be shed on that day. So, get a game in while you can. The clock is ticking on the House that Ruth.