NASCAR track hopes battered, ISC puts Staten Island site on sale

The Associated Press

Sunday, May. 13, 2007

NEW YORK - A sprawling site on the Staten Island waterfront that was once pegged to become a 82,500-seat NASCAR track will be put up for sale within a month, according to a manager for the defunct project.

The property, once an oil tank farm, has been sitting idle since International Speedway Corp. abandoned its plan to bring professional auto racing to the island last year.

A subsidiary of ISC plunked down some $100 million for 440 acres along the Arthur Kill, a commercial shipping waterway that separates New York from New Jersey. It later spent tens of millions more on another 236 acres, and now is holding on to the largest undeveloped land parcel on Staten Island.

Plans for the track fell apart after residents, worried about potential traffic nightmares, vowed to fight it.

Michael Printup, director of corporate development for ISC, said the company is now hoping to sell to a developer, or even the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the adjacent New York Container Terminal.

"The goal is to find that magic developer," Printup told the Staten Island Advance.

He wouldn't say whether the company hoped to recoup its investment, saying only that "the market will dictate" the price.

Based in Daytona, Fla., ISC owns 11 major tracks across the country.

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