Barclays Center scores: City says arena generated $14 million in tax revenues in its first year

Corey Sipkin/New York Daily News

City provides first economic impact study of Barclays Center, which just celebrated its one-year anniversary.

The Barclays Center has generated an estimated $ 14 million in tax revenues in its first year, city officials told the Daily News, providing the first tally of the $ 1 billion arena’s contribution to the city’s coffers.

The estimates, which come from the New York City Economic Development Corp., are based on data provided by Barclays Center developer Forest City Ratner.

Overall, the direct output from the 18,200 seat arena, which just celebrated its first year anniversary and in its first year became the country’s No.1 concert venue, has been $ 145 million, the city told the News.

That number reflects spending done by visitors – non-New York City residents – both inside and outside the Barclays Center, on things like ticket sales, merchandise, concession purchases, restaurants and transportation.

These are dollars that would not been flowed into the local economy had the arena not been in operation, city officials said.

When other factors are taken into account, such as indirect business generated by the arena, the full economic activity spawned by the Barclays Center in its first year was $ 251 million, the city said.

The $ 14 million in tax revenues includes sales tax associated with purchases inside and outside the sports and entertainment complex, as well as income tax generated by Barclays Center employees and the Brooklyn Nets.

Forest City Ratner executive chairman Bruce Ratner called the numbers confirmation that the city and state’s investment in the Barclays Center was money well spent.

A total of $ 305 million in public subsidies have been committed to Atlantic Yards, Forest City’s $ 4.9 billion Brooklyn project, anchored by the Barclays Center.

“This just proves that the arena is a very strong economic engine for the city and the state,” Ratner told the Daily News.

Likewise, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who provided critical support for the Atlantic Yards project, touted the first-year numbers.

“In just its first year, the Barclays Center is already proving to be a major win for New York City and its economy,” Bloomberg told the News. “Tens of thousands of New Yorkers, as well as visitors from across the globe, have visited Brooklyn to experience this world-class venue, leading to a significant economic impact, additional tax revenue, and critical jobs for local residents.”

The city declined to say whether the numbers met its projections.

A 2009 study by the city’s Independent Budget Office estimated that New York would lose $ 40 million over 30 years on its investment. The study looked only at the Barclays Center, not at the overall project.

A 2010 study conducted by the city projected that the project would generate $ 411 million over 30 years.

In spite of the arena’s strides, critics say it has yet to generate enough jobs to justify the public subsidies it has received. And some local businesses near the arena say they have yet to see a much expected increase in revenues.

pfurman@nydailynews.com

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EPA Announces Cleanup Plan For Gowanus Canal

The Gowanus Canal, one of the most polluted waterways in the country, now has a cleanup plan in place to the tune of more than $ 500 million.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday how it will clean up the Superfund site.

Plans include removing contaminated sediment, capping dredged areas, properly disposing the contaminants out of New York and setting up retention tanks to reduce sewage overflow from seeping into the canal.

“This cleanup plan the EPA is announcing today requires that discharges from two of the major sewage overflow points in the upper canal be outfitted with retention tanks, so that when it rains heavily, the tanks will hold the water, so we don’t have this rush of raw sewage and toxins going into the canal whenever it rains,” said Judith Enck, a Region 2 administrator with the EPA.

“Removing this will take years, but it will be cleaner and safer,” said Rep. Nydia Velazquez, whose district covers parts of Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens.

The Gowanus Canal was declared a federal Superfund site in 2010 against the wishes of the Bloomberg administration, which wanted the city to do the cleanup.

The polluters, including the city, the Navy and gas companies, will foot the bill.

The cleanup process is expected to take eight to 10 years.

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Cuomo demands Plum Island cleanup plan

MINEOLA — New York state is demanding a review of environmental conditions on Plum Island before the federal government can sell the island and move an infectious animal disease laboratory to a new facility in Kansas, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday.

“Before the sale of Plum Island can continue, Washington must step up and sign a legally binding consent order spelling out its full plan for cleaning up the Island and giving the state oversight authority to make sure the work has been done properly,” Cuomo said in a statement.

The 843-acre island off the eastern tip of Long Island houses a laboratory that studies infectious animal diseases that could imperil the nation’s livestock industry. Congress voted in 2009 to close the aging laboratory, which opened in 1954. Before that the property housed a Spanish-American War-era U.S. Army base; old parade grounds and decrepit artillery batteries remain on the eastern half of the island.

Legislation envisions using proceeds from the sale to defray the costs of moving operations to a new laboratory at Kansas State University, although members of Congress from New York and Connecticut introduced legislation earlier this year that would block the sale.

Environmentalists on both sides of Long Island Sound have said if the island is eventually sold, it should be maintained as a wildlife sanctuary. The town of Southhold, which wound have jurisdiction over Plum Island after it is sold, recently passed zoning laws that would effectively prevent any development on the property.

At a press conference on eastern Long Island, Cuomo cited a 2010 letter from the state Department of Environmental Conservation that raised concerns about lingering environmental issues on Plum Island. That letter said, among other things, that there was no environmental remediation plan in place for the lab’s Building 257, where research was conducted for many decades before a modernized laboratory replaced it.

The DEC said in 2007 that hundreds of tons of contaminated soil had been removed from landfills and other areas on the island, but DEC spokesman Peter Constantakes said Monday that a comprehensive groundwater investigation was never conducted.

Environmentalists remain dubious over the island’s actual condition.

“We are ecstatic that Gov. Cuomo has added his voice in calling for a comprehensive environmental investigation and cleanup of Plum Island,” said Adrienne Esposito, Executive Director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment. “History teaches us that protection of the long term health and safety of the public should never be traded for short term financial gain.”

There has been no estimate on what the sale of the island might fetch at auction.

A spokesman for the General Services Administration, which is overseeing the sale, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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A modest request

Bebeto Matthews/AP

If fancy restaurants can have dress codes, why not Satmar shops?

The city’s Human Rights Commission has overreached badly in reading discriminatory intent into the straightforward language of signs that lay out a dress code for a few stores in one shopping strip in Brooklyn.

The signs, since removed, on seven storefronts on Lee Ave., the main shopping stretch of the Satmar Hasidic enclave of Williamsburg, stated — in English and Spanish — that shoes, shirts and long sleeves are required, and shorts and low-cut necklines are not allowed. That’s it.

Yet, the Commission sees the notices violating Section 8-107(4)(1) of the Administrative Code of New York, which prohibits a store from “directly or indirectly” denying service based upon a person’s “actual or perceived race, creed, color, national origin, age, gender, disability, marital status, partnership status, sexual orientation or alienage or citizenship status.”

In a city where businesses — from Hooters to the Harvard Club, Webster Hall to the Four Seasons — can require dress codes for customers (as well as employees), there’s simply nothing untoward about the Lee Ave. stores’ standard.

Nor is a generalized request for modesty somehow “a public accommodation trying to impose its religious beliefs on other people,” as commission Deputy Commissioner and General Counsel Clifford Mulqueen has inexplicably claimed.

He offered an entirely different rationale to Gothamist, that the signs made “one protected group of individuals [women] uncomfortable.” But the code applies to both men and women.

Notably, Mulqueen told the news site Vos Iz Neias he didn’t “actually remember” who leveled the complaint that prompted his agency to act.

In other matters — including refusals to cooperate with law enforcement and opposing a sensible effort to regulate a controversial circumcision practice — some ultra-Orthodox Jews have seriously tested the church-state divide.

But here, it’s the secular state that’s overstepping its bounds. Back off.

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FDNY boosts applications of 9/11 firefighter victims’ kids

DAVID WEXLER FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

‘We’d all like to thank Gov. [Andrew] Cuomo,’ said Scott Barocas, second from left. At far left is James Tancredi. From right are James Sullivan, Lawrence Sullivan Jr., Robert Sullivan, Michael Sullivan and John Sullivan. All are sons of FDNY first responders.

The children of New York firefighters who died from 9/11-related illnesses will now be given so-called “legacy points” in the FDNY’s review process for applicants.

But the change, made possible by a law signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo late Friday, may be too late for some hopefuls.

RELATED: SONS OF 9/11 FDNY HEROES LOSING CHANCE TO SERVE

The FDNY already hired from the most recent civil service list for firefighter applicants. The new law will be applied “on a going-forward basis,” a spokeswoman for the Department of Citywide Administrative Services said Monday.

Scott Barocas, one of 13 people who planned to join the FDNY this summer by using legacy points to climb the hiring list, had not lost hope.

PHOTOS: FALLEN HEROES ON 9/11

“We’d all like to thank Gov. Cuomo,” he said.

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FDNY boosts applications of 9/11 firefighter victims’ kids

DAVID WEXLER FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

‘We’d all like to thank Gov. [Andrew] Cuomo,’ said Scott Barocas, second from left. At far left is James Tancredi. From right are James Sullivan, Lawrence Sullivan Jr., Robert Sullivan, Michael Sullivan and John Sullivan. All are sons of FDNY first responders.

The children of New York firefighters who died from 9/11-related illnesses will now be given so-called “legacy points” in the FDNY’s review process for applicants.

But the change, made possible by a law signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo late Friday, may be too late for some hopefuls.

RELATED: SONS OF 9/11 FDNY HEROES LOSING CHANCE TO SERVE

The FDNY already hired from the most recent civil service list for firefighter applicants. The new law will be applied “on a going-forward basis,” a spokeswoman for the Department of Citywide Administrative Services said Monday.

Scott Barocas, one of 13 people who planned to join the FDNY this summer by using legacy points to climb the hiring list, had not lost hope.

PHOTOS: FALLEN HEROES ON 9/11

“We’d all like to thank Gov. Cuomo,” he said.

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New Yorkers Back Adding Casinos in State, Poll Finds

Opinions about the general idea of expanded gambling were divided, but when the pollsters asked voters the actual question that would appear on the Nov. 5 statewide ballot, 55 percent said they would support it, 42 percent said they would oppose it and 3 percent were undecided, according to the survey by Siena College. The ballot language presents only positive arguments for gambling, saying that allowing more casinos would be for the purposes “of promoting job growth, increasing aid to schools and permitting local governments to lower property taxes.”

The poll suggested that the wording of the question is significant. When voters were asked the question in a different way, without a list of casino development’s intended purposes, they were evenly divided.

The poll, conducted from Sept. 22 to 26, queried registered voters statewide, making its predictive value uncertain. There are no statewide elections this year, and turnout is expected to be generally low and widely varied, depending on the competitiveness of local races. In New York City, where turnout could be higher because there is a contested race for mayor, voters appear to be more skeptical of the casino referendum.

The poll found that voters agree with arguments both for and against expanding casino gambling.

Seventy-four percent agreed that allowing the development of casinos would create thousands of jobs, and 65 percent agreed that more casinos would generate significant revenue for the state and for local governments.

At the same time, 57 percent agreed that the state already has enough outlets for gambling and did not need more casinos. And 55 percent agreed that developing casinos would only increase societal problems, like crime and compulsive gambling.

So far, the debate over the referendum has been muted. But on Sunday, the New York State Catholic Conference warned of social problems associated with gambling. And on Monday, a group of business and labor leaders announced that they had formed a coalition that will urge voters to support the casino proposal.

The group supporting the measure, called NY Jobs Now, includes among its leaders William C. Thompson Jr., the former New York City comptroller who unsuccessfully ran this year for mayor, as well as several major political donors to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a champion of the casino referendum. A spokesman for the coalition declined to say how much it planned to spend in support of the referendum.

Government watchdog groups have raised concerns about the wording of the ballot question, which the State Board of Elections approved after consultation with Mr. Cuomo’s office. But in the poll, 51 percent of voters said they thought the question was fair; 43 percent deemed it unfair.

Another referendum that will be on the November ballot — to amend the State Constitution to allow some judges, including those on the state’s highest court, to serve until they are 80 years old — appears to be in trouble. Seventy-one percent of voters said they would vote against the proposal, compared with 26 percent who said they supported it.

The poll, conducted by telephone with 807 registered voters, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

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