City strikes out at the Stadium

$100M parking-lot loss

The city is owed more than $100 million in unpaid rent, taxes and interest on parking lots at Yankee Stadium constructed nearly a decade ago — with no payment in sight, documents show.

Bronx Parking Development Corp., which runs the facilities, has lost at least $28 million a year in each of the past three years because not enough Yankee fans are willing to pay as much as $45 to park there for a single game.

The firm owed the city’s Economic Development Corp. $45.2 million in unpaid rent and interest as of March 31, and $56 million in unpaid taxes and interest, records show.

“It was definitely a boondoggle from a former administration, but what now?” said Geoffrey Croft, president of NYC Park Advocates, who has been monitoring the deal because it displaced acres of Bronx parkland. “At some point, the city needs to take responsibility for this horrible deal because the bill keeps going up.”

The Yankees insisted they needed thousands of additional parking spots for fans when the new stadium was built, so about 9,100 spaces were created or preserved in 2010.

The team has no financial stake in the parking facilities.

City officials backed the Yankees’ analysis at the time, even though the MTA had agreed to con- struct a new Metro-North station near the Stadium, which opened in 2009.

Garages were constructed with $237 million in tax-exempt bonds issued in 2007 by the EDC’s Industrial Development Agency, along with $70 million in state funds and $32 million from the city.

Under the terms of the deal taxpayers won’t see a penny until Bronx Parking makes enough money to pay bondholders.

The company has defaulted on those payments in each of the past five years.

Bronx Parking has been in negotiations with bondholders to restructure the deal since at least February, according to City Council documents.