Instagram

Report: Stadium Parking Falls Short on Jobs Promise

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.

Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.

Like this story? Leave your comments below.