News
METS, JETS & GIANTS STADIUM UPDATE
January 22, 2009
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| With their sports now off-season, the Young Mortgage Bankers Association brought together three sports execs to update us on the new Giants/Jets and Mets stadiums during a luncheon at the Union Club on E. 37th. Scott Rosner (center), associate director of the Wharton Sports Business Initiative, moderated, while Dave Howard, Mets' EVP of business operations and Thad Sheely, Jets' EVP of stadium development & finance, discussed. |
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| The $800M Citi Field is 95% complete, on time, and on budget, Thad tells us. The soft opening is set for March 29, with a college game before the Mets' April 3-4 exhibition games vs the Red Sox and April 13 home opener vs the Padres. The $1.6B stadium replacing the Meadowlands is 60% complete, with structural steel work in place, Dave says. A thousand workers have toiled in the bitter cold to the tune of $50M in new construction each month. |
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| Thad with YMBA's officers: chair Carly Berfas of Eurohypo AG; program chair Ron Cohen of Besen & Associates; vice chair Adam Horowitz of AFC Realty Capital; and publicity chair Evan Hakalir of JPS Capital Partners. We had to ask Thad: Cards or Steelers? His diplomatic answer: "I only root on the Jets." An unscientific Bisnow survey concluded that the luncheon's tough crowd doesn't care about the Super Bowl without Gang Green or Big Blue. |
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| Title insurance exec and attorneyby day, rock stars by night: Benchmark Title Agency's Mike Vanchieri and Farrell Fritz's Dave Curry (left and second to right, with Besen Capital's Angela Ortiz and Euro Mortgage Bankers' Scott Haber) respectively play guitar and sing lead for classic rock cover band The Ninjabread Men. (See the stuff you learn in Bisnow?) |
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| After the luncheon, we hopped a 7 train to Flushing, where we snapped this of bulldozers chipping away at Shea while the new stadium looks on. It's jarring to see the 45-year-old icon disappear. |
