The New York Post claims that the state upped its offer to Goldstein (and kinda misses the rest of the story)

Of all the doofus coverage of the judge-pushed settlement in the condemnation case involving Daniel Goldstein, Adam Bonislawski's post in the New York Post real estate blog, headlined New York State not such a great negotiator actually tops the Times's CityRoom post about how Goldstein might move to places like New London, CT.

Wrote Bonislawski:

We were actually all set to write a sympathetic post about how Atlantic Yards holdout Daniel Goldstein was getting screwed by the state , which was lowballing him with a $510,000 offer on the 1,290-square-foot Prospect Heights condo he bought for $590,000 in 2003.

And, well, then this happened -- the state upped its offer to $3 million, an offer that Goldstein, not being insane, quickly agreed to. And while we're happy to see the whole business resolved, it does make us wonder if maybe the state is not so good at the whole bargaining thing, and if maybe this is part of why we pay so much in taxes. Seriously, how did those negotiations go?

State officials: We can offer you $510,000 for the apartment.

Goldstein: That's too low.

State officials: Ok. How about $3 million then?

Goldstein: Done!

State officials: Fantastic! [High-five]

The posted comments

My comment:

Forest City Ratner funded the settlement, not the state. The developer has gotten $131 million already from taxpayers to buy $280 million worth of land. The developer claims it's losing $6.7 million a month from delays. So there was certainly some logic to paying $3 million, especially since it includes weakening the leading opposition group.

From Gib Veconi, known for his work with BrooklynSpeaks:

New York State is a terrible negotiator, all right. It agreed to let Forest City Ratner off with building 800 affordable units over 25 years instead of 2,250 units in 10 years. And even the 800 units are now contingent on the developer getting more subsidies that haven't been committed yet.

The State thought it was negotiating for jobs and housing, and instead is going to get a second-rate arena and a huge parking lot. Goldstein's deal has nothing on Ratner's.