NYCkayaker Troubled Randalls Island proposal faces deadline & Comptroller wants to sink water park

[Harry J. Bubbins]

Many of you have expressed your support in this matter in one way or
another, and thanks to our combined efforts, we are closer to protecting our
shorelines and landing locations...

Note the quote about "man-made" river... That is what they are proposing
along our real estuaries...

Harry



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Comptroller wants to sink water park

by patrick arden / metro new york

http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/Comptroller_wants_to_sink_water_park/
10044.html


SEP 18, 2007

MANHATTAN. The Bloomberg administration is breaking rules to get a water
park on Randall¹s Island, charged the city comptroller¹s office yesterday. A
Parks Dept. spokesman responded the city took ³appropriate² steps for ³this
major community improvement.²

Last year, the Franchise and Concession Review Committee inked the park deal
with Aquatic Leisure LLC, an offshoot of Aquatic Development Group. But the
agreement stipulated the firm must close on its financing within 225 days,
or the contract would ³terminate.²

³The developer is in default,² wrote Comptroller William Thompson in a
letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg yesterday, eight months after the deadline
had passed. ³The process should be redone in a fair, open and competitive
manner.²

Thompson had already called for the project to be reopened to bids. A
³seriously flawed process,² he said, had led to a sole-source contract for a
large private development on public land. The water park had also doubled in
size and quadrupled in cost since the 35-year concession was announced by
the Giuliani administration in 2000.

Critics said it smacked of a sweetheart deal. One of the developer¹s
investors was Albany businessman Jerry Abbruzzese, who bailed out Aquatic
Development after it had declared bankruptcy.

Last October, Metro reported the developer had suddenly backed out of
discussions to get $215 million in bonds from the city¹s Industrial
Development Agency. The firm¹s president, Herb Ellis, is part of another
venture called Steuben Place Partners, which couldn¹t repay a $1.5 million
loan to Albany¹s IDA.

Reached yesterday, Albany Local Development Corp. spokesman Jeffrey Sullivan
said Steuben had yet to make ³any payments² on that debt and was still on
the hook.

Ellis told Metro yesterday he could not comment on whether Aquatic had
secured financing yet and directed questions to Parks Dept. spokesman Warner
Johnston.

Johnston produced an April 2007 letter that granted the developer an
extension to get a written commitment for financing by Sept. 19 and to close
on the loan by Nov. 2. He said the extension was ³within the discretion of
the Parks Dept.² and did ³not require re-submission to the FCRC.²

Thompson spokesman Jeff Simmons noted the agreement¹s deadlines said: ³no
party ... shall have the right to cause such dates to be extended for the
purpose of allowing a financing to take place.²

³The comptroller maintains that Parks¹ actions are unconscionable and fly in
the face of fair and open government,² he said.

Another hurdle

The water park has yet to obtain a wetlands permit from the state Department
of Environmental Conservation. ³There have been several submissions by the
[Parks Dept.], but at this point in time the application is incomplete,²
said DEC spokesperson Maureen Wren.

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Troubled Randalls Island proposal faces deadline
AmNew York, September 18, 2007

A proposed $168 million theme park on Randalls Island is already six months
behind schedule and could face even more delays unless the developer can
prove by Wednesday that it has the money to build the controversial project.

The city Parks Department, responding to a letter from city Comptroller
William Thompson that the developer, Aquatic Development Group, Inc., be
dumped for breach of contract, disclosed Monday that it gave the company a
six-month extension to secure financing for the project.

Originally, the city's contract with Aquatic Development required the
Cohoes, N.Y.-based firm to get financing by Feb. 17.

The agency said because the extension was a change to an existing contract,
the decision did not require approval from the city's Franchise and
Concession Review Committee, which originally awarded the contract to
Aquatic Development in April 2006.

"The city has been working with the concessionaire to ensure they fulfill
the terms of the agreement," city Parks Department spokesman Warner Johnston
said in a statement.

"In the event that the concessionaire is unable to fulfill its financial
commitments under the agreement, the city will take appropriate steps to
ensure that development of this major community improvement continues."

Officials from Aquatic Development could not be reached for comment Monday.

The theme park, which will have 26 acres of water slides, wave pools and
man-made rivers, drew sharp criticism from Thompson, who questioned the
financial stability of Aquatic Development and noted that it had once
declared bankruptcy before emerging from it in the mid-1990s.

"It appears my findings regarding the developer's ability to finance and
build the water park were accurate," Thompson wrote in a letter for Mayor
Michael Bloomberg Monday. "It is clear ... that the water park will not be
completed on time and, as such, the developer is in default."

Under the agreement, in exchange for a 35-year lease, Aquatic Development
would guarantee the city at least $1 million per year in revenue, and as
much as $4 million, depending on park attendance.

The money from the deal would be used to pay for other park improvements on
Randalls Island.

http://www.amny.com/news/local/am-randalls0918,0,1191136.story

Harry J. Bubbins
Director
646.206.5288 
http://friendsofbrookpark.org
Mail:  PO Box 801, The South Bronx, NY 10454