The Jets, who never formally gave up their quest to build a football stadium over the railyards on the West Side of Manhattan, missed an important deadline this month to buy the development rights from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, agency officials said yesterday.
As a result, the agency's board may formally terminate its agreement to sell those development rights to the Jets at its meeting on Wednesday, according to officials at the authority. That step would probably represent the official conclusion to the stadium plans.
Though the state's top legislators did not approve a $300 million subsidy for the proposed $2.2 billion West Side Stadium on June 6, the team has clung tenaciously to the idea that it could resurrect the proposal by getting the money from union pension funds or other sources. At the same time, the Jets have talked to officials in New Jersey about the possibility of remaining in the Meadowlands and building a new stadium with the Giants.
Butthis month, the transit authority requested that the team declare whether it was prepared to proceed with the $250 million acquisition of the railyard by July 18, which would have required the Jets to negotiate a contract and put up a nonrefundable $50 million deposit.
Catherine A. Rinaldi, general counsel of the M.T.A., said yesterday that the Jets had failed "to get back to us." "As of today," she said, "we have not heard back from the Jets. On Wednesday, we're going to bring the board up to speed as to the status of the negotiations. We'll figure out how to proceed."
The Jets have already spent four years and more than $63 million on its effort to build a new home in Manhattan.
The chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Peter S. Kalikow, and other members of the authority's board have been anxious to resolve the issue with the team and move on. They believe that the property could bring a high price and help to resolve some of the authority's financial problems.
Mr. Kalikow and the authority's president, Katherine N. Lapp, met with the president of the Jets, L. Jay Cross, and Matthew Higgins, a team vice president, on July 12 and asked them to make a decision. According to people on both sides, Mr. Kalikow said that prospects for a West Side stadium were nil, given that the Jets did not have state approval or the prospect of the 2012 Olympics.
The Jets, however, wanted more time to consider their options, including a plan in which they built the stadium and a commercial or residential building. But Mr. Kalikow was unwilling to consider it because real estate development was not part of the tentative agreement the two sides had reached in March. He and other board members say that they can get more money by selling it to developers themselves. Some M.T.A. officials say the board may void the agreement with the Jets on Wednesday.
Over the last month the team has not made any public comments. Mr. Higgins of the Jets would not comment yesterday. But another Jets executive, Thad Sheely, discreetly asked city officials recently about the possibility of building a stadium at Willets Point, in Queens, near Shea Stadium. And earlier this week, Mr. Cross went out to Willets Point to review the site.
While the team and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg were pushing for a Manhattan stadium, the Jets had indicated they were not interested in moving to Queens. But the team played in Queens for many years before moving to New Jersey in the 1980's and it still wants a stadium of its own.
The Jets also ended their dispute with the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority this week, after the authority agreed to lower its rent to the same level as that of the Giants, who plan to build a new stadium in the Meadowlands.
"We hope this will be the first step in the process that will keep them here long term," said George R. Zoffinger, president of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority. "We're confident that we, the Jets and the Giants can work out a way that they'll be equal partners in a new covered stadium in the Meadowlands."
A spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg, Edward Skyler, declined to comment.