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Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Diaz Proposes Bailout for Yankee Parking Lot Owners
Here is a piece in the NY Post by Nicole Gelinas about Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr.'s proposal to bailout the company that operates the parking garage at Yankee Stadium. The company, the Bronx Parking Development Co, borrowed $230 million to build the lot through the issuance of bonds. Now that the company is close to defaulting on those bonds, Diaz is pushing to build a hotel on the site. His proposal would call for the hotel bailing out the parking lot company, and that hotel company getting multi-million dollar subsidies. Gelinas says of the proposal, "Diaz’s proposal relies on fear of a bond-market panic, which would force another 2008-style bailout of sophisticated investors. Apparently, such bailouts are OK as long as they come in the form of useful goodies, like the promise of taxpayer-subsidized construction jobs for Bronx voters."
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BAILOUT !!! That's just nutty.
ReplyDeleteJust what planet is Ruben Diaz Jr. on? His plans have failed. Stand up Mr. Diaz and be a man and admit it.
ReplyDeleteHotel Jobs > Retail Jobs....no? Or is this just Diaz Jr. loses no matter what, with some of you guys? Quit drinking the hateoraid. If we are going to subsidize anything, subsidize a project that will create jobs that people might have a chance living off of, not part time $8 hour jobs. 20 hours at $8 per hour = $160 per week. Yeah, that's the solution the Bronx needs so badly.
ReplyDeleteThis opinion piece written by The Post is riddled with assumptions and sneaky logic.
ReplyDeleteThe key wording is: "The hotel would pay Bronx Parking for the space -- “stabiliz[ing] the financial situation we face so that we can ultimately meet our obligations to the bondholders,”
So, the new investors involved with the hotel would pay off the parking lot's bond debt, then open up shop; yes, they will receive incentives, abatements and subsidies, but so would of the Armory, and the investors involved with the Armory, as we all remember, were unwilling to pay their new employees $10 per hour, let alone pick-up pre-existing bond debt as a cost of business.
So how is this new deal not a win-win situation? A private entity (the new hotel) will pick up the insolvent bond debt leftover from Bloomberg's awful original deal with Parking Development Co., and the new Hotel will also pay their new workers a living wage. THE NEW HOTEL WILL HAVE EARNED THEIR TAX SUBSIDIES; unlike the proposed Armory deal, where their investors asked for everything but were unwilling to give anything -- not even an extra $1.75 per hour for their workers.
Looking forward to the replies and insults...
Government bailouts of private investors are exactly what the OWS protesters are upset about. We don't need a local version of it here in the Bronx. So no thanks Ruben Diaz, Jr.
ReplyDeleteWhy should the taxpayers be involved in bailing out the parking lot company?
ReplyDeleteBaghdad Rob is back!
ReplyDeleteI am philosophically opposed to governmental interference in business affairs beyond the bare minimum necessary for the maintenance of peace and property rights. Say NO to more bailouts!
ReplyDeleteOccupy Wall Street Now !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteSo the Bronx Borough President wants to give a government bailout for the cash-strapped company that operates Yankee Stadium’s taxpayer-subsidized luxury parking garages ... Well thank goodness the timing for such an terrible idea could not be worse.
ReplyDeleteMr. Giuffre,
ReplyDeleteWho would pay Two hundred and eighty million dollars for a piece of land? And still have the private funding means to develop it into a hotel! While offering chambermaids, bellboys and service your "living wage" It is just not feasible.
Rockefeller Center was purchased for less. The Armory was only five million in purchase price. By comparison what did it cost to build the stadium?(Leave out the Seabrook boiler system cost) Leadership should have a better sense of the economics involved. Having a thick skin is part of understanding the economic feasibility of a deal.
When I saw this post go up earlier today, I cackled aloud at the prospect of all the dimwitted and hypocritcal commentary it would invariably spawn. And so far you guys have delivered!
ReplyDelete"The Armory project must go forward!" the commentariat cried. "Ruben Diaz Jr has killed business in the Bronx!" they whined. "How can he take bread out of the mouths of wealthy developers, multinational corporations, and the thieves and pillagers who make any construction project in the city a financial nightmare?" they asked, chins trembling.
What is the only thing that is a stupider idea than building 9,000 exorbitantly priced parking spots next to a ballpark served by two of the world's busiest subway lines, high-capacity commuter rail serving midtown Manhattan and a hundred communities in two states, and lots and lots of cheaper parking? Spending a huge amount of taxpayer money to build a third-rate shopping mall with no parking in one of the nation's poorest neighborhoods, all in the name of creating 1500 absolutely dead-end, benefit-less jobs.
It was destined to fail, and it would have cost the taxpayers dearly coming and going. If you are concerned with government spending and putting an end to bailouts and handouts, you should give Diaz a standing ovation for his role in ending the Related project.
With the parking fiasco, Diaz is left trying to make chicken salad out of Carrion's and Bloomberg's chicken shit. The taxpayers are already on the hook for $90 million non-recoverable dollars. That can either be wasted, and the garages can sit unused and eventually blighted, or we can give a hotel operator some subsidies and have *them* pay the bondholders off and create a new project that will generate construction jobs and permanent jobs that conform to living wage requirements.
You want to rabidly hate everything Diaz does? Fine. This is one instance where slavishly sticking to that plan makes you look flat-out stupid.
it sounds like a bad deal for tax payers
ReplyDeleteThis is to a public bail out, its a public subsidy of a new construction project. The hotel would be bailing out the parking lot. Big difference. Has its merits, and would actually be a suitable candidate for the 'living wage' unlike the Armory where the requirement would be passed off to tenants of the developer.
ReplyDeleteIn this economic and political climate, I've got to imagine that spending public dollars this way would be deeply unpopular with most New Yorkers.
ReplyDeleteI don't even read what's written here, I just know that the right thing to comment is "screw baby Diaz!"
ReplyDeleteWhat a laugh...ha ha ha ha! GOOD LUCK WITH THAT PIPE DREAM
ReplyDeletejUST say no to bailouts ... they should do it on their own!
ReplyDeleteNew York City will only sow the seeds for future economic problems by giving subsidies and preferential treatment and bailouts to a private garage corporation. Companies must be responsible for their own failed business decisions.
ReplyDeleteWe cannot trust Bronx Borough President Rubén Díaz, Jr. to do the right thing. He's the one who killed the Kingsbridge Armory project (and with it more than 1000 construction jobs plus more than 1000 permanent jobs). It's just a crying shame!
ReplyDeleteWhat's no longer debatable is that Camp Quinn and supporters of the wasteful, corrupt, and rotten status quo are absolutely terrified of Diaz. These senseless and illogical ad hominem hit pieces aren't being written by accident.
ReplyDeletethis proposal can only be made by a real knucklehead
ReplyDelete"Man is not free unless government is limited."
ReplyDelete-Ronald W. Reagan
40th President of the United States
Farewell Address, Jan. 11, 1989
If you actually study the armory mess, you'll find out that Ruben Diaz Jr. was NOT the one and only mastermind behind the killing of the project. I'm inable to lecture you in one comment, but I will say that Diaz does NOT deserve to be the only one demonized nor critiqued. The City Council is to blamed also.
ReplyDeleteGovernment bailouts only favor the interests of the top one percent. Our elected officials must stand up for the remaining 99 per cent.
ReplyDeleteSay no to bailouts large and small !!!!
"Man must be at the center of the economy and the economy must not be measured only by the maximization of profit but according to the common good."
ReplyDelete-Pope Benedict XVI,
265th Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church,
Aug. 17, 2011.
Here are some things to think about, courtesy of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
ReplyDeleteDefinition of WELFARE STATE : a social system based on the assumption by a political state of primary responsibility for the individual and social welfare of its citizens
Definition of SOCIALISM : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
Definition of CAPITALISM : an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market
Definition of STATE CAPITALISM : an economic system in which private capitalism is modified by a varying degree of government ownership and control
Opposing bailouts is a capitalist position . . . and there's nothing wrong with that.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read on this blog what Ruben Diaz is proposing, I thought for a second that I woke up in France, because what he's advocating is a system where profits are privatized but losses are socialized.
ReplyDeleteHard to see any objectivity here.
ReplyDelete"We're in a mess now. At the dawn of the new century, after years of strong job growth, rising incomes, and declining debt, we abandoned a proven path to shared prosperity in favor of doubling down, once more, on antigovernment ideology. Now we're paying for it. The only sensible thing to do is for all of us to take some responsibility for changing things."
ReplyDelete-William J. Clinton,
42nd President of the United States,
"Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy"
(Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2011).
I strongly OPPOSE CORPORATE BAILOUTS because they are nothing but CORPORATE WELFARE !!
ReplyDelete