THE PROBLEM WITH PLAN B

Editorial

June 14, 2005 -- Mayor Bloomberg deserves credit for trying to salvage the city's Olympic dreams, which Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver torpedoed last week. But Hizzoner's bid for a new stadium in Queens raises a raft of new questions.

Plan A was a stadium on the West Side, to be built by the Jets football team and used for the 2012 Olympics, should the city be chosen to host them.

Silver, in concert with state Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, killed that worthy idea. So Mayor Mike came up with Plan B.

On Sunday, he unveiled a deal for the Mets to build a stadium in Queens that could be adapted to host the Olympics.

The team would pay for the facility, estimated to cost some $675 million, and the city and state would cough up $180 million for infrastructure work, planning credits and reserve funding for the Mets.

Albany and City Hall would kick in another $108 million, and a private fund, NYC2012, would add $142 million more to convert the facility for the Olympics.

So right at the outset, total costs for a Queens facility to host the 2012 Games would top $1.1 billion. How long before that grows close to the $2 billion West Side pricetag that Silver & Co. decried?

Not long; this is New York, after all.

Meanwhile, any day now City Hall is expected to announce a deal for a new Yankees stadium in The Bronx.

What will that cost? And how much will come from taxpayers' pockets?

There's more: Any outlays by Albany have to be doubled — because, by tradition, every dollar spent downstate is matched by another dollar spent upstate.

None of which, to be sure, is cause to oppose the long-planned Mets or Yankee facilities outright. Indeed, we've always supported reasonable public investment in infrastructure. And keeping the city a viable place for its two Major League Baseball clubs certainly qualifies for that.

But given the costs — and the bang for the buck, which doesn't appear anything near what it would have been on the West Side — there certainly are grounds to go slow in Queens and The Bronx.

Already, critics of the West Side plan are saying, We told you a stadium for the Olympics can be built in Queens.

But the Manhattan facility was to double as a convention site and work in conjunction with an expanded Javits Center — all part of a major redevelopment that would include new apartments, office space, parkland and stores.

The potential for spillover construction in Queens is far from clear.

Meanwhile, Silver's chief goal in opposing the Jets stadium (or so he said, anyway) was to block development in midtown Manhattan, for fear it would undermine economic activity in his district, the Downtown area.

Yet Mayor Mike is vowing to do whatever it takes to spur West Side construction, even without the Jets stadium. So Silver's attempt to thwart it may well fail after all. (Kudos to Hizzoner for sticking it to the speaker, given Silver's unconscionable attitude toward the Jets plan.)

As we've said, stadium projects (in Queens, The Bronx, the West Side or anywhere else) need to be judged apart from the Olympics. Oddsmakers say New York is a longshot for the Games, and anyway, it makes no sense to spend billions solely for a two-week event.

The West Side plan had clear benefits besides the Games; in Queens, that remains to be seen. Until it is, New Yorkers would be wise to reserve judgment.