Yankees and Mets Request Additional Tax-Free Bonds for Their New Stadiums
December 16, 2008. In today's New York Post, the New York City Industrial Development Agency (IDA) published notice of a public hearing to be held regarding requests by the New York Yankees and New York Mets for additional tax free financing for their new stadiums.
The hearing will be held on
Thursday, January 15, 2009, at 10:00 AM at 110 William St., 4th Floor
in Lower Manhattan, by the Fulton Street Subway Stop. Please mark your
calendars and please let us know if you plan on testifying or have
questions.
A copy of the hearing notice is available
here. Project
materials for the Yankees' stadium are available
here and project materials for the Mets' stadium are available
here.
The Yankees are requesting up to an additional $259,000,000 in city,
state and federal tax-free
financing and $111,900,000 in federally taxable (but city and state
tax-exempt) bonds, along with
$60,000,000 in tax-exempt refunding bonds. In addition, the team is
requesting additional sales tax breaks for construction materials and an
additional mortgage recording tax break. The IDA's
cost/benefit analysis does not separate the costs of these
additional tax breaks from the entire project, but Neil deMause received
this information verbally from the IDA. He
reports that the IDA estimates the additional sales tax subsidies
will cost the city $5.1 million (which means it will cost the state an
extra $7 million), the additional mortgage recording tax break will cost
the city $6 million, and the city cost of the income taxes lost on the
tax-free bonds will be $5.2 million. The state and federal costs of the
tax-free bonds will be much higher, and we will add these figures
shortly. All of these costs are in addition to the more than
$1 billion
in taxpayers funds the Yankees have already received for their
stadium.
View the IDA's cost/benefit analysis and the Yankees' application
for additional bonds for the new Stadium project.
The Mets are requesting up to an additional $82,280,000 in tax-free
financing. The NYC Independent Budget Office estimates that this will
cost city taxpayers approximately $200,000, state taxpayers $400,000,
and federal taxpayers approximately $20.3 million. The Mets are also
requesting additional sales and mortgage recording tax breaks, but we do
not have estimates of these costs.
View the IDA's cost/benefit analysis and the Mets' application for
additional bonds for the new Mets Stadium project.
On December 19, NYC Comptroller William Thompson issued a statement urging the IDA to post the special public hearing notice for these bonds on its website and to reschedule the board meeting, originally slated for January 20th, inauguration day. As of Monday, December 22, the IDA has posted the notice on its website and has rescheduled the board meeting for Friday, January 16, 2009 - just one day after the public hearing.