You know, I had actually forgotten that Joe Torre won't be back this year...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/sp...in&oref=slogin
You Can’t Buy the Naming Rights, but Call It the Billion-Dollar Ballpark
The new stadium, which is set to open in April 2009, has its name inscribed into the stone and highlighted in gold leaf.
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
February 8, 2008
The old Yankee Stadium cost Jacob Ruppert and Tillinghast Huston $2.5 million to build and $100 million (or so) for the city to rebuild. The cost to replace it is now about $1.2 billion — not $930 million ($830 million and financing) as originally estimated.
Then there’s another $135 million, still to be financed as part of a separate company in the Yankees’ realm to create the food and beverage business the team will start, rather than invite an outside concessionaire like Aramark to build it.
However you calculate the costs, it is hard to envision what the $1.2 billion ballpark will look like, what with all the mud, cranes, uninstalled seats, unbuilt luxury suites and hundreds of construction workers at the site. There is still a lot of concrete and steel to build on.
Surely, it will be a dandy replica of the original ballpark, which dates to 1923, and not a facsimile of the stadium that emerged from the unimaginative 1974-75 renovation.
Or, as Yogi Berra said during a video produced by the Yankees to market premium seating at the ballpark, “It’s going to be like a new stadium.”
It was Lonn Trost, the Yankees’ chief operating officer, who noted the new costs Thursday during a news-media tour of the construction site. They will be borne by the team, not the city and the state, which are footing the bill for new parks, new garages and a new Metro-North station, and financed by borrowing beyond the $866 million in tax-exempt bonds and $64 million in taxable bonds that are financing the stadium’s construction.
The team’s debt service will surely rise — and it won’t get any help from a naming rights deal. Trost said the team has rejected offers of at least $50 million a year — two and a half times what Citigroup is paying the Mets — to name the stadium for a corporation. He did not say which companies would pay such a fee.
Still, even without naming-rights booty, Sal Galatioto, who runs a sports investment banking company, said the Yankees shouldn’t have much trouble finding more financing. “The Yankee name carries a lot of weight with investors,” he said. “They have a good story to tell, especially if some of the increased expenses will increase revenues.”
About $150 million in higher costs are going to a fancier scoreboard than originally envisioned and enhancements to luxury suites, club suites and restaurants that went beyond the original architectural plans — all designed to produce cash.
The scope of space dedicated to the wealthiest’s pursuits in suites and pampered club areas is stunning. The two-level Legends Suite Club will serve the 1,800 ticket holders who will sit closest to the field in 1,800 cushioned seats extending along the baselines from home plate. Hopefully, when ticket prices are announced, the wealthiest in their premium areas will subsidize the regular Joes.
(There is also a conference center — if a meeting breaks out in the sixth inning.)
Another $60 million is to pay for security improvements that were recommended by the New York Police Department and $50 million was associated with starting construction several months late in August 2006 because of lawsuits.
The stadium is starting to look like something, much like Citi Field, which is rising in Flushing beside Shea Stadium. Both ballparks are racing to be completed by April 2009.
The dueling Yankee Stadiums face each other across 161st Street. The partly finished granite and limestone exterior of the new one winks at the ancient House That Ruth Built as if to say, “I’m going to be look better than you — and I’ll have wider seats.”
Gate 4, at the corner of 161st Street and Jerome Avenue, gleamed in the gray chill.
YANKEE STADIUM is inscribed into the stone and highlighted in gold leaf. Circular holes on either side of the inscription await the arrival of sculptured medallions of eagles that were part of the original design by Osborne Engineering.
“I just ran across Ruppert’s 1924 income tax return where he started amortizing the $2 million construction cost,” Trost said. “For $2 million, we can build a seat.”
Actually, arithmetic proves that the 53,000 seats will cost $22,641 each. (Cheap!)
Inside, much of the steel structure is completed, and the most striking feature so far on display is a 21st-century rendition of the rooftop frieze that defined the old stadium’s design. The old one was copper and turned green through oxidation. The new frieze is made of steel, painted white and was delivered in 39 six-ton pieces.
About half are in place, giving the new place its first indication of grandeur.
Trost’s tour of the construction site meandered from outside (with what appears to be a much gentler grade to the seating, offering fewer steep views), to the inside, where he walked through the Yankees’ clubhouse, showers and weight room. He gestured down a corridor and said, “Torre’s office is that way.” Reminded of the transfer in power from Joe Torre to Joe Girardi, he added with a smile, “You know it’s Joe’s office.”