The city and the state may not be funneling $600 million into a new Mets stadium, the amount they promised to the Jets on the West Side, but there is still plenty of taxpayer expense built into the hastily negotiated deal to build a new stadium for the Mets and the Olympics.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced on Sunday that the Mets had agreed to "privately finance" a new stadium in the parking lot next to the team's existing Queens ballpark. He said the city and the state would invest about $180 million - $105 million from the city and $75 million from the state - in "infrastructure and site preparation."
Although the details are still being worked out, the city and state would pay for highway improvements, environmental cleanup, electric and sewer lines to the new stadium, and other forms of "site preparation," according to state and city officials.
The estimate of $880 million overall for the Mets stadium pales in comparison with the $2.2 billion project for the Jets, which would have been the most expensive stadium in the world with the largest public subsidy ever provided for a professional team. But in the world of stadium financing, what one team calls an expense for infrastructure another will call a government subsidy. It is also clear from interviews with state and city officials that the Mets will get a series of state and undisclosed public benefits.
Despite references to private financing, state and city officials say the Mets expect to pay for the stadium by using as much as $700 million in tax-exempt bonds rather than conventional financing, thereby reducing government tax revenues. That would allow the team to save an estimated $11.2 million a year in annual bond payments.
The Mets, like the Yankees, who are expected to announce plans for a new $800 million stadium later this week, will not pay rent, though the teams play on city-owned land.
One element of the Mets deal that was not described at the Sunday news conference has to do with parking at Shea Stadium. The city now gets that revenue, but in the future the Mets would get the first $7 million a year in net parking revenues, and the city and the team would split whatever else comes in, according to three people involved in the deal-making who refused to be identified because the terms are under negotiation. That much revenue is unlikely, though, since annual parking revenue at Shea has not exceeded $3.8 million for five years, according to the city's Parks Department.
City officials scrambled to put together a deal with the Mets over the last week after their first choice, a West Side stadium for the Jets, was rejected by the state's top legislators. The new deal is supposed to provide the Mets with a long-sought replacement for Shea that could be used for the Olympics if New York is selected for the 2012 Olympics.
Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff estimated Sunday that a new Mets stadium would generate $180 million in additional tax revenue for the city over the next 30 years. More importantly, he said, the city would no longer have to pay the fast rising cost of maintaining Shea, because the Mets would build, operate and maintain the stadium.
"We believe over 30 years," Mr. Doctoroff said, "we will save or earn $393 million."
The city's leases with the Mets and the Yankees have always been good examples of the term "sweetheart deal," according to real estate executives. In the five years from 2000 through 2004, the Mets paid a total of $24.5 million in rent to the city. The city spent $20.8 million in turn maintaining the aging stadium, leaving a net gain of less than $4 million. City officials contend that stadiums also generate millions of dollars in tax revenue.
Most economists are skeptical of public investments in stadiums, which they say largely enrich the team but create very little additional business because they provide only seasonal, relatively low-paid jobs.
Andrew Zimbalist, a sports economist at Smith College in Northampton, Mass., said the Mets deal was better for taxpayers than the Jets project.
"It's an O.K. deal, as these deals go," Mr. Zimbalist said. "The fact that the Mets are nominally putting up $600 million or $700 million is better than you usually get. The typical stadium deal usually entails 60 to 70 percent public financing."
The Mets and the Yankees had struck a far different deal with Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani in 2001, in which they agreed to a 50-50 split of the cost of two $800 million stadiums with retractable roofs. The state agreed to cover tens of millions of dollars in infrastructure costs.
A month later, though, newly elected Mayor Bloomberg called a halt to public financing for sports stadiums.
Given the sea change in stadium politics at City Hall, the Yankees last year proposed building a new home in the Bronx for $800 million and paying for it. The team asked the state and city to pay about $300 million for a Metro-North train station, subway platforms, parking garages and parkland.