Titanic New York property deal collapses

DPA FINANCE US Business Architecture Titanic New York property deal collapses New York The multi-billion dollar deal for one ofManhattan's most underused tracts of lands collapsed as the developerand the public operator of the subway system failed to agree on alast-minute hitch, media reports said Friday.

  Just six weeks ago, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the New York governorand other top officials joined the developer, Tishman SpeyerProperties, to celebrate the deal on the 10.5-hectare plot along theHudson River between 30th and 33rd Streets.  But late Thursday, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority - theMTA that runs the subway and public transport system - sent an e-mailsaying that negotiations had "reached an impasse," Bloombergfinancial news reported.  Tishman Speyer wanted to delay payment of the 1 billion dollars itwas to pay for the air rights over the railyards on Manhattan's farWest Side until the city had rezoned an adjacent parcel of railyard.  The complex was to be larger than the World Trade Center projectbeing rebuilt  in lower Manhattan.  Tishman Speyer spokesman Robert Lawson told BLoomberg that theoffer for a 99-year lease was "highly complicated."  The property has been hotly contested in the past, including in2005 when mayor Bloomberg was trying to put together a developmentpackage to attract the 2012 Olympics and the New York Jets footballteam.  The MTA, the country's largest public transit agency, depended onthe sale to help finance billions of dollars it needs to expand,modernize and maintain the region's commuter rail and bus lines, thecity's subways and buses, and several bridges and tunnels.  May 0908 2052 GMT