ALBANY, June 3 - Supporters of a proposed West Side stadium postponed a crucial vote on its construction on Friday, shortly after Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver signaled his intention to vote against it. The delay threw the stadium's fate back onto Albany's murky trading floor of favors and promises, and set up an expected frenzied weekend of talks intended to change Mr. Silver's mind.
Once again, the project that has become Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's centerpiece became the subject of negotiations over political needs hundreds of miles apart, from the future of downtown Manhattan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to the revival of depressed towns upstate.
City and state officials said they were preparing a broad package of incentives to lure businesses back downtown - appealing to Mr. Silver, who has made such an effort his pet project - and a senior aide to Mayor Bloomberg said the administration believed room remained for negotiation and compromise with the speaker.
But the enigmatic Mr. Silver, who with Gov. George E. Pataki and Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno holds veto power over the project - declined to show his hand in a day of high-stakes brinksmanship. Early in the day, he scheduled a 1 p.m. news conference at ground zero, a clear signal to stadium supporters that he planned an announcement to disappoint them.
The possibility of such an announcement clearly shook Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Pataki, who were more accustomed to hearing Mr. Silver say he still had reservations or unanswered questions about the football stadium. On Thursday, both men had made it clear they would brook no delay in the vote by the little known Albany panel, controlled by Mr. Pataki, Mr. Silver and Mr. Bruno.
"The meeting will be held tomorrow," Mr. Pataki said on Thursday. Mr. Bloomberg said, "We've run out of time."
But after a private morning telephone conversation with Mr. Silver, the mayor learned the seriousness of his position and agreed to delay the vote again, a senior aide said, the third such delay in the last month. When Mr. Silver gave him a glimmer of hope that he could still possibly be persuaded to vote yes with more negotiation, Mr. Bloomberg conferred with the governor who agreed to delay the vote, the aide said.
Minutes later Mr. Bloomberg went on his weekly radio show, nearly a half-hour late, to announce the postponement.
"We are going to postpone that vote until Monday and work through the weekend to see if we can satisfy all of the parties, each of whom has legitimate concerns," he said on his weekly radio show. "And I believe that there is a way for us to get together and do what the city needs."
In an interview late Friday afternoon, Mr. Silver said he opposed the mayor's plan to subsidize business growth on the West Side, particularly because there are no similar subsidies planned for downtown nearly four years after the World Trade Center attack.
"It's unfortunate if the vote on the stadium is the only thing that may get them to focus on that," he said. But ruling nothing out, he added, "Monday's a long way from Friday."
At a news conference, the governor said he shares Mr. Silver's concerns that the 24 million square feet of office space the mayor plans to add to the West Side, along with the stadium, could make it harder to lure businesses back downtown.
"I think the speaker has raised with the mayor some valid concerns about creating competition with new office space on the West Side that could impact his commitment, my commitment, and the mayor's commitment to Lower Manhattan," Mr. Pataki said. "To me this is an issue that should be resolvable."
The postponement, clearly a blow to the mayor, means there may be a vote on the stadium on Monday, the same day that the International Olympic Committee issues an evaluation, but not a final decision, on New York's bid for the 2012 Summer Games, along with those of four other cities. Mayor Bloomberg has contended that an approved stadium is crucial to the city's bid, and had expressed hope for the vote before the evaluations are released.
Some state officials harbored doubts that the matter could be resolved by then, but one said he believed it was a distinct possibility. Aides to Mayor Bloomberg and Mr. Silver said that the weekend's talks would try to address Mr. Silver's insistence that the city offer more incentives to lure businesses back to Lower Manhattan. It was unclear, however, if Mr. Silver and Mr. Bruno would come around to support the stadium in the end.
Both men have expressed increasingly stronger misgivings about the project in recent days, ranging from the size of the public subsidy involved, which both say could top $1 billion, to questions about the financing of the plan. Both have wondered whether it makes sense, if the city does not get the 2012 Olympics, to build a stadium that would serve as the home of the Jets football team.
But in Albany's culture of compromise and deal-cutting, lawmakers and lobbyists were unsure if that meant that the two men were really against the proposal, or staking out firm bargaining positions. State officials have said that if the state spends $300 million on the Manhattan stadium, Senator Bruno is expected to seek a commitment of at least that much money for other, unrelated projects upstate. As a result, the stadium and its side deals could cost the taxpayers far more than the subsidies now planned.
One senior state official said that in negotiations with Mr. Silver's staff, they had worked out an incentive package to retain and lure businesses and jobs to Lower Manhattan, ranging from the elimination of the commercial rent tax to rent subsidies and job credits.
The state was ready to ensure that the subsidies downtown would be steeper than what Mayor Bloomberg has in mind on the West Side for commercial tenants and developers. But efforts to save the stadium are also splitting the ranks of the real estate industry, with some Midtown landlords of older buildings concerned that downtown properties will be able to steal their tenants with the spectacular set of subsidies being proposed, not to mention rents that are already cheaper.
"I would like to see something put together for downtown, but it can't be some massive aid package that encourages people to move from Midtown to downtown," said Jeffrey R. Gural, chairman of Newmark & Company. "A lot of people feel that's not fair. The $3,000 per employee is a killer."