An artist's rendition of how the West Side Stadium would have looked.
The
West Side Stadium (also known as the
New York Sports and Convention Center) was a proposed
football stadium to be built on a platform over the rail yards on the
West Side of
Manhattan in
New York City. The arena would be an all-weather facility with a retractable roof, allowing it to be used as either a indoor convention hall, or a 85,000 seat (75,000 Post Olympics) indoor/outdoor sporting event stadium. It was to be the new home for the
New York Jets, currently based at
Giants Stadium in
East Rutherford, New Jersey. The stadium was to have served as the centerpiece of
New York's bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics, but, after heated debate, the proposal was finally defeated politically only a month before the
International Olympic Committee was to make its decision.
The site was to link the transportation, hotel and business hub centered on
Herald Square and
Madison Square Garden with the
Jacob J. Javits Convention Center. It was promoted by New York Governor
George Pataki, New York City Mayor
Michael Bloomberg, and Congressman
Charles Rangel, but opposed by most of the local elected officials representing the area. The centerpiece of the city's bid for the
2012 Summer Olympics, the stadium would have been part of a larger project to
revitalize a long-underdeveloped area, including an expansion of the
Javits Center and the
7 Subway Extension. It was going to host
Super Bowl XLIV in 2010 along with a college bowl game with a Big East team to be known as the Big Apple Bowl.
Controversy
The stadium proved highly controversial because it would have been a major construction project requiring
public financing. Though many of its opponents supported the larger West Side development program, they questioned the economic benefit of a stadium which would have spent much of its time unused, as well as the general premise of subsidizing a football team which generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Opponents felt that the budget could be better spent on mixed-use facilities. Supporters of the stadium said the cost to the city (over $1 billion) was an investment and would create thousands of jobs and billions in commercial revenue for the area, perhaps leading to increased tax revenue that could be used for vital infrastructure. However, powerful city unions, including the
Uniformed Firefighters Association and the
Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, argued that the inevitable tax-breaks for the stadium's developers would cut sharply into State funds that should instead have gone to salary increases.
Public opinion was mixed. Some citizens of New York,
New Jersey, and
Connecticut were in favor of the stadium because they wanted the
2012 Summer Olympics to be held in New York City. In order to host the Olympics, cities typically must build modern stadiums and prove to the
International Olympic Committee that they have the resources to support the event.
But many Manhattan and West Side residents did not want the hassle, traffic congestion, and resource drain that the Olympics would inevitably bring to the already overcrowded city. The
New York Daily News reported that 59% of New Yorkers were not in favor of holding the Olympics in New York at all. In December 2004, the commuter advocacy groups
Straphangers Campaign and
Tri-State Transportation Campaign filed a lawsuit which challenged the city's estimate that 70% of stadium patrons would use mass transit or arrive on foot instead of driving. Many Jets fans wanted the stadium built, no matter what the cost.
The stadium was also notably opposed by
Cablevision, the sixth-largest cable television company in the United States and the owner of
Madison Square Garden (MSG)—home to the
New York Knicks and
New York Rangers—and the
MSG Network, which broadcasts most of those teams' games. A major new sports venue, particularly one on the West Side of Manhattan where MSG is located, would compete directly with MSG and thereby hamper the older venue's ability to secure concerts and other events. Cablevision went so far as to make a $600 million offer to redevelop the stadium site for housing and office space, and joined another lawsuit alleging that the city's environmental study was inaccurate. Cablevision's stance against the stadium proposal was cited as "a factor" in the
NFL moving its
2005 college player draft away from Cablevision-owned
Theater at Madison Square Garden to the
Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, ending a 10-year run of the event at MSG. (The NFL moved the Draft to another Cablevision-controlled property,
Radio City Music Hall, in 2006.)
The controversy spawned a political ad war on local television, with rival campaigns financed by the owners of the Jets and Cablevision. Proponents of the stadium said that the opposition ran deceptive television and radio ads claiming that a large multi-organizational coalition opposes the stadium, while many of these ads were funded by Cablevision. Cablevision said that it was presenting arguments other groups had actually made and that it was within its legal rights in refusing to run advertisements supportive of the stadium on its local cable systems, while running many ads critical of it.
The
New York Yankees were also displeased, because they had tried for many years to build a stadium on virtually the same site before conceding defeat and reaching a deal to remain in the
Bronx.
The rail yards are owned by the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which originally negotiated privately with the Jets without seeking other possible buyers. After Cablevision presented a rival proposal for West Side development without a stadium, public sentiment against an apparent
no-bid contract for the Jets prompted the MTA to establish an open bidding process for the site. There were three bids, from the Jets, from
Cablevision and from
Transgas, a power company. On
March 31,
2005, the MTA board voted to accept the bid from the Jets, even though the Cablevision offer included more cash up front. Attorneys for Cablevision announced that they would file suit to challenge the decision, and many other media outlets lambasted the MTA's decision as simply doing Governor Pataki's bidding rather than accepting a plan that would best serve the public.
The stadium issue was also a political issue, as 2005 was an election year. Some individuals, most notably mayoral candidate
Anthony Weiner suggested another location in
Queens, which has large open spaces and is home to other sports facilities such as
Shea Stadium (the former home of the Jets), as a possible alternative site for a stadium, but the Jets said that any site other than the West Side would be no better than remaining in New Jersey.
Two components of the stadium plan ($300 million in state funding and the MTA's transfer of the land) were subject to the approval of the state's Public Authorities Control Board. The Board's approval could be given only on a unanimous vote of its three members, who were representatives of
New York State Assembly Speaker
Sheldon Silver,
New York State Senate Majority Leader
Joseph Bruno, and Pataki. On
June 6,
2005, although Pataki's representative voted in favor, Silver and Bruno directed their representatives to abstain on the vote, thus denying the needed approval and scuttling the proposal.
Also on June 6, the International Olympic Committee released an evaluation of each city's bid, in which it noted that the New York City bid could not guarantee that the stadium would be available.
With the defeat of the West Side Stadium plan, Mayor Bloomberg and the New York 2012 campaign shifted their focus to the construction of a new Mets ballpark,
Citi Field, as the centerpiece to the Olympic bid, but the 2012 games were eventually awarded to
London.
In reaction to the state representatives' decision to reject the stadium's funding, the NFL decided on August 11 to reopen the bidding for the game site of Super Bowl XLIV. The eventual winner was
LandShark Stadium. The proposed college football bowl game will be played annually at
Yankee Stadium starting in 2010.
See also
- Barclays Center, a proposal for a sports, business, and residential complex over the MTA's Atlantic Yards
