New York Times, meet developer’s pocket; developer’s pocket, meet NYT.

I was hoping to find the time to craft some long-winded ire, but the real world conspires against me. That, and the panoply of horrendous journalism churned out in the course of a single afternoon from the House of Ratner (okay, okay, Neighbors of the House of Ratner) make it a little unfair that I gird these pages with 3,000 words explicating the missteps and oversights. So, quickly:

$120 million is all it takes to land a tenant at 7WTC? Hell, I need some space too. So Larry found hisself some medium time tenants huh? 600,000 sq ft, over 20 years, proof positive that downtown real estate is en fuego! Let’s look closely at the numbers, shall we? The Times estimates that a raft of tax breaks, gee gaws and other sordid do dads are taking $10 a foot off the lease number (which is already lower than Midtown, but isn’t a subsidy a sure sign of economic health? It sure is for every trust funded boutique in the LES). Over twenty years, that’s, um, $120 million of subsidy — but Bagli doesn’t have access to a calculator, so they leave it up to me to figure that out.. If that’s the cure, you sure don’t want to know the disease. Oh, other fun number: net gain in commercially leased space downtown: d’oh-nut! If Moody’s current space becomes ‘luxury housing’ well, then we will see a small uptick (did I get that from the Times, or did I have to figure it out — you get one guess). But that’s what we call a technicality. In a nutshell: Why did the Moody’s cross the road? $120 really big ones.

Somewhere in there is a train station, if you can find it admist all the developer slash and burn. Back in midtown, where the market is so hot the Dolans will move a block if they get a free arena and an extension on their tax break (which makes you wonder how this will end up being a bad deal — after all, when is the last time you saw the Dolan family make a smart decision?), we get the most confused shilling possible. It seems that everyone in midtown loves the idea that Penn Station will be transformed from a cramped ancillary space under the current MSG into a cramped ancillary space adjacent to a new MSG, except they can’t find anyone to quote, save for the developers taking what was a good idea and shitting all over it. A diagram of how a reduced allocation of space and removal of an intermodal hall will be an improvement (to say nothing about the sticky issues of development fees, the inevitable request for PILOTs, and whatever else flimflammery Roth/ss can come up with) would have been helpful. The slug here is that this plan is actually better than the one carefully crafted over the past ten year because “the current plan won’t relocate 80% of the passenger traffic”? Huh? Did the Times do this analysis? Or, um, maybe the developers? Hard to say, hard to say.

If anyone remembers, the big problem was that no one could get Amtrak to move (because the Feds are suffocating them slowly), making the whole intermodal dream a little ricketly. It couldn’t be that the developers have convinced themselves that Amtrak will fall all over this idea and climb on board, thus resulting in a more efficient plan? And how about selling the Farley air rights and development rights for $318 million? Aren’t air rights going in some neighborhoods for $400/sf in this overheated market? All interesting questions, and more challenges for that lost calculator. But don’t ask the Times. They are still hoping everyone forgets the shenanigans that resulted in their PILOT deal (if you recall, they were stumping for Liberty Bonds at one point).

Don’t get me started on the Memorial. Take a look at this rendering. So, um, now we are going to argue about who gets their relative’s name close enough to be acutally legible? And those ramps cost $160 million? Wow. Recall how much of the New York article was devoted to Arad arguing for his ramps. Payback is a bitch, honey. What’s the over/under on the number of days before he sends out a press release asking that the media no longer refer to him as the designer of the Memorial? If he really had the cojones everyone says he does, it’d be before this gets posted. But Gary Handel won’t let him do that, because that might make for some bad press and undermine efforts to build 13 versions of the same bland glass box over there in Hudson Square.

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