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."

 

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.