Registered: Jul 2001
Location: NYC
Posts: 11770

http://netscape.businessweek.com/bw..._9011_db038.htm
A New York State of Mind for the Jets
The NFL franchise is set to announce a $1 billion Manhattan stadium that the Big Apple hopes will ultimately help land the Olympics

The Jets are flying back to New York. The National Football League team that has been playing across the Hudson River in Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., for 19 years is expected to announce in the next two months that it will build a $1 billion, retractable-dome stadium on Manhattan's West Side, BusinessWeek has learned. The stadium would be a big boost to New York's bid to host the 2012 Olympics.

Under owner Robert Wood "Woody" Johnson IV, an heir to the Johnson & Johnson (JNJ ) fortune, the Jets will pay for the bulk of the project, with taxpayers footing a still-undetermined bill for infrastructure, including transportation upgrades. The new stadium, which will also serve as a convention center and arena, will be built on a platform to be constructed over Midtown rail yards between Penn Station and the Hudson River on Manhattan's West Side. The NFL would provide some financing through a special loan program for new stadium construction.

SUBWAY DELIVERY. A proposal for a West Side stadium was first trumpeted by former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in the late 1990s, when the New York Yankees were threatening to abandon the Big Apple. Mayor Michael Bloomberg was less enthusiastic at first but, along with Governor George Pataki, he has since embraced the idea, hoping it will help win the Olympic games and even possibly a Super Bowl. The International Olympics Committee will vote on the site for the 2012 games in 2005.

City officials have estimated that such a complex could eventually generate $2 billion a year in new tax revenues. Nearly 70% of those attending Jets games would use public transportation to get to the stadium, according to economic development officials.

Spokespersons for the Jets, Bloomberg, and Pataki declined to comment about an announcement, but sources say Jets President Jay Cross, hired in 2000 to help get a stadium deal done, has made great strides in recent months. Cross helped the National Basketball Assn.'s Toronto Raptors and the Miami Heat build new arenas. A Manhattan stadium announcement could come before the end of the NFL season in January, say sources.

ONE RING. The Jets would play their first season in Manhattan in 2009 under the plan. The team's lease at Giants Stadium in the New Jersey Meadowlands complex expires in 2008. The Jets earlier this year opted out of participating in a $300 million renovation of that stadium.

Struggling this year with a 3-6 record, the Jets made the American Football Conference playoffs last year, but have made only one Super Bowl appearance -- a dramatic victory in 1969 -- in their 40-year history. Under owner Johnson, the team now hopes a return to Gotham will change the course of history.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Boston, MA, Center of the Universe
Posts: 4509

Cool. They still suck. Though now that the Old Brillo Mullet isn't on the field anymore, I like them a lot better.

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Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Boston
Posts: 6562

The Jets are the stinky of the AFC East. Forever.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Boston, MA, Center of the Universe
Posts: 4509

I hate the realignment. I miss the Colts. Being tied with them for first place would be much more satisfying than carrying a 2 game lead in a division of imploding teams.

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Registered: Jun 2001
Location: Octopus's Garden
Posts: 1005

This is the same stadium NY has been hoping to build for the Yankees. It will be going over in the old train yards.

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Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Boston
Posts: 6562

quote:

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Originally posted by Astro74
This is the same stadium NY has been hoping to build for the Yankees. It will be going over in the old train yards.

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: anywhere but here
Posts: 4420

i said this was happening eons ago. no one believed me.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Boston, MA, Center of the Universe
Posts: 4509

quote:

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Originally posted by pj
i said this was happening eons ago. no one believed me.

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