"Costs for park at old Yankee Stadium jump 48%" Daily News 3/20/8
Costs for park at old Yankee Stadium jump 48%
BY KATHLEEN LUCADAMO
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU
Thursday, March 20th 2008, 4:00 AM
The cost of replacing the parkland being destroyed to build the new Yankee Stadium has ballooned to $190 million - 48% more than the city had anticipated, city officials said Wednesday.
"It's a very complicated project," confessed Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe during a City Council hearing. The agency has hit unexpected snags on the environmentally sensitive land that is driving up the costs of construction, he explained yesterday.
The new $800 million stadium for the Bronx Bombers is being developed on 13 acres of parkland along 161st St., across the street from the 85-year-old House that Ruth Built.
To remedy the lost green space, the city vowed to spend $128 million to create 28 acres of new park and recreation space in the area, including turning the old stadium into a ballpark for kids called "Heritage Field."
"A lot of the site conditions were a lot more challenging than we knew at the time we made those estimates," said Deputy Commissioner Liam Kavanagh.
In one waterfront spot, for instance, park officials unearthed an underground oil tank that had to be drained and removed, Benepe said.
The updated $190 million price tag shouldn't force the city to scale back plans, officials said, noting that one of the smaller ballfields at Public School 29 is opening next month and the West Bronx Center will be ready for games in June.
But environmental advocate Geoffrey Croft protested the city taking the land in the first place.
klucadamo@nydailynews.com
posted by * @ 7:10 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
The city is playing loose with the numbers again -- it was never $128 million for parks, because $27 million of that was to tear down the current stadium and move a water main.
So the price has gone up $89 million, or 88 percent, and that's just for the new parks. If you count the ramps to the new Metro-North station and all of the other associated nonsense, the city is paying $282 million.
The NYC press should be ashamed of itself for the terrible quality of its coverage. The Post is always terrible, but the Daily News should have known better. It never said anything while this was happening. And shame, shame, shame on the NY Times.
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