A company that received millions in tax-exempt bonds to finance the development of parking lots around Yankee Stadium did not deliver on the number of jobs it said it would create, an audit from the City Comptroller’s office detailed recently.
Bronx Parking Development Company LLC received $225 million in private activity bonds to build 2,184 parking spaces near the new Yankee Stadium. The city’s Economic Development Corp. (EDC) approved the financing for the project despite the fact that the organization’s parent company had defaulted previously on tax-exempt economic development bonds, the report said.
“The EDC has enormous power to create and protect jobs, and yet it has handed out huge taxpayer subsidies with alarmingly spotty results,” Comptroller John Liu said in a statement. The audit examined $497 million in tax breaks given to hundreds of companies by the city’s Industrial Development Agency (IDA) and the EDC.
Bronx Parking is now on the verge of defaulting on its bond payments, Liu’s report says, blaming the EDC for failing to notice “gaping holes” in the company’s financial plans. The company also promised to create 55 jobs as part of the deal but has fallen short on that agreement and has lost six full-time jobs, the audit says.