Yesterday,
The New York Times
ran a lengthy
article
about the mounting public costs of New York City's two rising baseball stadiums.
Good Jobs New York
has been meticulously tracking
these subsidies
for over three years.
The article documents the increase in tax breaks for the
Yankees
and
Mets
new homes from the $281 million announced in 2005 to $458 million today. The article also takes Mayor Bloomberg to task for his flip-flopping
comments on subsidies
for stadiums.
While reporters at other New York daily papers, Patrick Arden at
Metro
and Juan Gonzalez at the
Daily News
specifically, have devoted space and research to the ever expanding subsidies and seizing of 22 acres of park space for Yankee Stadium, this is
The New York Times
' baseball stadium subsidy coming out party, so to speak.
While the city stands by the project claiming $40 million in new revenues over 40 years, the article is chock full of counter arguments from economists claiming that sport arenas
don't drive economic development.
Most interesting of the experts cited is Andrew Zimbalist. Zimbalist is an economist from Smith College who has
written positively
about New York City's stadium projects but throws a bit of a curve ball in
The Times
piece. He rebuffs a claim that the Hard Rock Café and N.Y.Y. Steak restaurants at the new Yankee Stadium will bring much more business to the area saying, "it's hard to imagine" they would provide many benefits during the off season, because it "would require a tremendous renaissance in that part of the Bronx."
All New Yorkers, not just economists, should pay attention to this evolving project since the Yankees and Mets are expected to apply for
additional public financing
(GJNY will forward details of the public hearing when it is announced) just as news of
tax increases
on the middle class and
cuts in critical services
are being proposed.