People often say New York is out of sync with mainstream America, but the arrival of a NASCAR stadium on Staten Island could change that at a very high rate of speed.
If plans for a huge raceway in the city’s least urbanized borough come to fruition by decade’s end, race weekends could see teeming masses of out-of-town fans stream into the city to cheer on a sport that started in the South and that’s about as New York as fresh-brewed iced tea on a quiet veranda.
The International Speedway Corporation in December 2004 bought for around $110 million a site on the West Shore of Staten Island, and is seeking city approval for what would become the Big Apple’s biggest sports stadium ever: an 80,000-seat stadium surrounding a .75-mile track, plus a retail center developed by the Related Companies.
The ISC controlled by the same France family which also founded and runs NASCAR estimates that the city approval process should take about one and a half more years. Assuming final approval from the City Council, the city’s first NASCAR race could run by the spring of 2010, ISC New York project director, Michael Printup, told The Real Deal.
“Is there a chance,” Printup said, “the City Council won’t approve our project? Yes. Then, that’s it. It’s done. We would sell the land as of right.”
But momentum is building. CBS’ “60 Minutes” dedicated a chunk of its Oct. 9 telecast to the success of NASCAR probably the most popular American sport after pro football, in terms of attendance including the possibility it could find a New York toehold. Also, the Staten Island Advance newspaper has detailed ISC efforts to convince local leaders of the stadium’s merits by shepherding them to other raceways in other areas, such as California.
Some Staten Islanders, though, remain underwhelmed by the possibility of 80,000 racing fans, many of them from out of town, converging on a mostly industrial area on the fringes of the city’s least-populous borough. The ICS estimates that 8,400 cars with 20,000 people will be able to park on-site; 900 to 1,000 buses will drop off as many as 30,000 people from park-and-ride lots; and the remaining 30,000 fans will be ferried in.
“You’ve just got to look at a map, and laugh at that,” said Ronnie Lauria, a leader of Staten Island Citizens Against the Track.
The group sees the NASCAR stadium as a boondoggle, bringing in the equivalent of 18 percent of Staten Island’s population to snarl traffic and wreak unholy noise on the city’s most suburban borough.
But the ISC has ready rebuttals. First, the stadium will host only three races a year. The rest of the year, according to the ICS, the stadium could be used for “a very limited number of smaller events, such as a driving school, car shows and go-kart racing.” Second, the noise of a race, according to the ICS’ Web site on its New York efforts, should be below the decibel levels of a jet take-off and a rock concert. Finally, the stadium could be an economic boon to Staten Island.
Printup compared the size of the proposed Staten Island stadium with that of the Richmond International Raceway in Henrico County, Va. That raceway, according to estimates from owner ISC, generates the equivalent of 3,334 full-time jobs annually, and racing fans spend a total of $200 million during the three race weekends there every year.
Still, critics say 80,000 people is a lot for a borough that more than any other relies on automobiles for transportation. A report released in March by the state comptroller’s office on Staten Island’s economy noted that “traffic congestion in the borough has reached a critical point, as aging roadways and bridges are struggling to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population and increasing traffic.”
Staten Island was New York state’s fastest-growing county by population during the last decade.
“There’s 457,000 people on Staten Island,” Lauria said, “and 267,000 cars. That’s a higher concentration than any other borough.”