A Billion Here, A Billion There, Pretty Soon It Adds Up To Real Money
Senator Dirksen no doubt would have been pleased that the combined contribution of the city, state and MTA for Yankee Stadium is actually over $500 million and the total cost to the public for both Yankee Stadium and Citi Field is over $1 billion:
Posted: January 15th, 2009 | Filed under: Follow The Money, Things That Make You Go "Oy"With two days until the city is slated to approve a fresh batch of more than $500 million in tax-free bonds to finish the Yankees and Mets’ new stadiums, the city’s Independent Budget Office has released numbers calculating subsidy, adding a bit of clarity to a somewhat murky debate.
Between the new Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, IBO estimates the total cost of various city, state and M.T.A. subsidies at $762.3 million — $528 million for the Yankees and $234 million for the Mets. That’s about 35 percent more than the $499 million that the IBO calculated in 2006 for the two projects (costs, particularly on infrastructure and parks for the Yankee project, increased significantly). Taken with federal subsidy on tax-exempt financing for the structures, the total cost to the public is estimated at $1.2 billion, according to the IBO.