From FCE, (boilerplate) doubt about AY timing; Nets losses prompt $13M loan

Atlantic Yards Report offers analysis of Forest City's Annual Report:
While Atlantic Yards supporters have criticized opponents for delaying the project by filing a lawsuit challenging the environmental review, it turns out that developer Forest City Ratner has much more than legal delays on its mind.

Also, while the rate of losses for the New Jersey Nets has slowed, the parent company must still offer a $13 million loan to fund the team this year.

According to the annual report issued at the end of March by parent Forest City Enterprises, other factors, including increased construction costs and the availability of tax-exempt financing, also play into potential delays. The language is required boilerplate, but it does stand in contrast to the sunny predictions, despite countervailing evidence, that the project will be completed in the promised ten years.

Warning on losses

Investors are warned that only a move to Brooklyn, and perhaps not even that, will bring profits to the Nets. Again, that's boilerplate, since obviously the developer expects big profits from a suite-intensive arena:
Losses Are Expected for the Nets
On August 16, 2004, we purchased a legal ownership interest in the Nets… The relocation of the Nets is, among other items, subject to various approvals by the NBA, and we cannot assure you we will receive these approvals on a timely basis or at all. If we are unable to or delayed in moving the Nets to Brooklyn, we may be unable to achieve our projected returns on the related development projects, which could result in a delay in the return of, termination of, or losses on our investment. The Nets are currently operating at a loss and are projected to continue to operate at a loss at least as long as they remain in New Jersey. Even if we are able to relocate the Nets to Brooklyn, there can be no assurance that the Nets will be profitable in the future.

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Forest City/Ratner projects have proven results in Brooklyn: they ruin neighborhoods, don't bring jobs and cost the public money...when the projects inevitably fail, as Metrotech and Atlantic Mall did, the city and state move agencies in the empty office space, or offer mass tax breaks to big corporations who do. Perhaps Spitzer should seriously contemplate the financial costs of having to bail incompetent-but-well-connected Bruce Ratner out of the largest proposed project in NY history.