Ratner gets the Yards for free and you will
pay.
Anybody got a problem with this?
In September 2005 Bruce Ratner agreed
to pay the MTA $100 million for the rights to the 8.5-acre Vanderbilt Railyards,
which comprise over one-third of the "Atlantic Yards" project site.
The MTA reached that lowball agreement despite the competing bid of $150 million
by Extell Development Company and the $214.5 appraisal.
Last week it was revealed that New York City would give $100 million in
taxpayer funds to Bruce Ratner for "land
acquisition."
No need to connect the dots here, it's one dot.
The City is using taxpayer dollars to buy the railyard rights for Bruce Ratner.
This means that Forest City Ratner would pay NOTHING for the rail yards–nada.
Ratner gets the Yards for free and you will pay.
With the City chipping in another $105 million (a number which will
rise as the "extraordinary infrastructure costs" become more and more
"extraordinary") plus the $100 million from NY State it sure sounds
like Ratner will be paying NOTHING for ALL of the land acquisition of the full
22-acre site (if the developer ends up acquiring it all.)
