A $400 Million Play in Brooklyn
Blogger Norman Oder figures that the sale of the naming rights for the Nets' new home in Brooklyn will cover about half of the bond payments for the arena.
Or, rather, the "nearly $400 million" from Barclays Bank would cover that much of the construction cost if the developer, Forest City Ratner, had not been offered, by the state and the city, an even better way to pay off the bonds: the diversion of property taxes and rent.
- Matthew Schuerman
Update: today Mayor Bloomberg announced a figure of about $300 million.
Ratner is getting $100 Million in direct state subsidies, $100 million in direct city subsidies and possibly $2 billion in indirect subsidies from the taxpayers.
So, can we get some of our money back, since he's probably got a couple hundred million lying around? Why do the taxpayers have to subsidize Ratner's stockholders?
I guess that's what they mean by a public-private partnership: the public subsidizes the developer's private profit. And the developer lets us pay for the mitigations to his project. Sweet.