Metro

Bloomberg gives Prospect Park a nice farewell gift

It’s a farewell gift to the operators of Brooklyn’s biggest park — courtesy of Mayor Bloomberg.

The city is planning to set up the nonprofit Prospect Park Alliance with a sweetheart deal to operate the green space’s new 26-acre, $74 million Lakeside Center ice-skating facility after the group raised $19 million in private funds to help build it, The Post has learned.

Lakeside Center, which opens in December, expects to generate a huge infusion of additional revenues for a 585-acre green space pummeled in recent years by budget cuts – dwarfing revenues the Alliance saw when it ran the park’s former, more modest Wollman Rink only a few years ago.

“This is an extremely extravagant parting gift from the mayor,” said Geoffrey Croft of the watchdog group NYC Park Advocates. “This deal could possibly be worth tens of millions of dollars for the Alliance over the life of the [17-year] agreement.”

The Bloomberg administration’s move to boost the group’s coffers comes as Mayor-elect Bill De Blasio is trying to drum up political support to hand over 20 percent of operating budgets for the Alliance, Central Park Conservancy and other funding-raising arms for top city parks and use it to boost long-neglected parkland.

Cutbacks in Prospect Park upkeep have led to increased complaints of littering, rotting lakeside trees, lake pollution — and even animal sacrificing rituals.

The Alliance won’t pay a cent for the first year of the deal, according to a copy of the group’s 17-year licensing agreement inspected by the Post.

It would then pay a flat rate of $100,000 the second year and see slight annual increases, bringing its rent up to a $116,097 maximum by 2030. The deal is expected to be approved Tuesday by the city’s Franchise and Concession Review Committee.

In comparison, Wollman Rink in 2010 generated $512,000 in revenues during its last year of operations — with $232,000 from entrance fees heading back to the city’s general fund to pay for police, firefighters and other expenses and the remaining $280,000 from other concessions going to the Alliance for park maintenance.

The city Parks Department denied repeated requests to provide revenue projections for the project, except offering a very vague statement claiming revenues would be similar to what the Alliance received “in the early years” it ran the old Wollman Rink. All of the revenues raised would go towards maintenance and programs for Prospect Park.

The Prospect Park Alliance declined comment.

At Central Park, Donald Trump runs two popular ice rinks that raised $6.6 million in revenues last year. The city got back $2.2 million for its general fund.