From Gotham Gazette: Cuomo’s Getting His Belmont Arena, But the Numbers Don’t Add Up

I have an op-ed in Gotham Gazette, headlined Cuomo’s Getting His Belmont Arena, But the Numbers Don’t Add Up. From the opening:

Three lessons from the long battle over Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park and the Barclays Center in Brooklyn are that promises of huge financial benefits deserve skepticism, that independent studies trump promotional ones, and that scenarios should be presented as a range of outcomes, rather than just the best case.
Unfortunately, those lessons have been ignored regarding the new sports-and-entertainment arena complex planned at Belmont Park in western Nassau County, with the New York Islanders as anchor tenant and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, surely anticipating a big ribbon-cutting in 2021, as the chief cheerleader.
The near-final step toward approval of “the transformational $1.26 billion Belmont Park Redevelopment Project” came in a Cuomo press release July 8 announcing that a new Long Island Rail Road station would help serve the project, which also includes a hotel and “luxury outlet stores.” (That retail, as I explain below, might be the priority for the Islanders’ owners.)
The press release came with a chorus of praise—the new station might lessen the likelihood of arena-related traffic chaos—but left seeds for doubt.
Unfortunately, as the project comment period ends August 1 and approval votes loom soon after, the Cuomo administration has obfuscated public assistance for the station and an overall deal that gives the developers the project land essentially rent-free, while presenting an economic benefits analysis with glaring gaps, and delaying the delivery of promised data.

For the rest of the essay, go here.