Officials Draw Up Stadium Plan to Keep Yankees : Baseball: New York state officials secretly put together details for a $500-million, 48,000-seat domed stadium on Manhattan’s West Side.

Convinced that George Steinbrenner has decided to move the Yankees to New Jersey, New York State officials have secretly put together detailed plans for a $500-million, 48,000-seat baseball stadium with a retractable dome on Manhattan’s West Side.

The Manhattan architectural firm of Cooper, Robertson & Partners has drawn up the design for a state-of-the-art ballpark on a massive concrete platform centered at the Long Island Rail Road yards at 11th Avenue and 32nd Street, said Vincent Tese, chairman and president of the state Urban Development Corp.

The UDC, a state agency empowered to sponsor development in a substandard or unsanitary area, has also hammered out a proposed financing formula under which the state and city would each pay as little as $10 million a year to cover the cost of building the stadium and an adjoining parking garage, hotel and offices, Tese said.

Such a project would generate opposition from West Side community activists, Tese said, but would also draw support in a recession. He contended the project would spur riverfront real-estate and business development and generate 2,000 to 3,000 jobs beyond those needed for construction, he said.

Tese said the state isn’t retreating from Governor Mario Cuomo’s hope of keeping the Yankees where they are in the Bronx, but it is believed Steinbrenner has already made up his mind to flee the borough.

“He wants to leave, but hasn’t told the city, and the decision is between the city and George,” Tese said. “We’ve told the city that we’re prepared to help in any way we can.”

For months, Steinbrenner has complained about a lack of parking, safety and highway access around the 70-year-old Bronx stadium, saying the problems caused attendance to plummet even though the team had a winning season.

Tese said officials have quietly, but hurriedly, assembled detailed plans to keep the team in New York City by building the Manhattan ballpark -- so New York can be ready with a bottom-of-the-ninth-inning swing against Jersey’s pitch.

“The way government works it’s not going to happen until George gets up and gets ready to leave,” Tese said. “He’s just laying low until after the city mayoral and the New Jersey gubernatorial elections.”

Steinbrenner is friends with New Jersey developer Jon Hanson and New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority head Robert Mulcahy, leaders in the state’s bid to lure the team to a possible $160 million stadium in the New Jersey Meadowlands, sources said.

It could be built with alarming ease, New York state officials said. The Meadowlands is already state-owned and zoned for large projects, requires no environmental impact statements and could be funded by any number of sources such as casino reinvestment levies or a special lottery.

Even more worrisome to Tese is that Hanson and Mulcahy have been talking regularly with Steinbrenner. “We’re nervous because we haven’t been wrangling with him for about a month, and that’s a bad sign. Will he come back to us? Probably. In his heart he wants to be here, in midtown Manhattan,” Tese said.

In a sign of the escalating tensions between the states, Cuomo and Tese raised the possibility of retaliating against New Jersey’s grab for the Yankees by lobbying the legislature to approve casino gambling in the city and elsewhere. They said that New York legalized gaming could pass and would put Atlantic City “out of business.”

Jersey Sports Authority officials declined to discuss talks with the Yankees management. And a call to Steinbrenner’s Tampa, Fla., headquarters was not returned yesterday.

Cuomo told New York Newsday on Monday that the state is still trying to keep the Yankees in the Bronx with a package that includes luxury boxes and an $18-million Metro-North Railroad depot near the stadium. Asked if moving Yankee Stadium would seriously injure the Bronx, Cuomo said: “No. It would hurt spiritually, but it’s not big bucks.”

To soften the blow of the team leaving for Manhattan, Tese said state officials envision the city spending as much as $150 million -- on top of the West Side stadium construction costs -- to transform the Bronx stadium into a year-round facility for sports, concerts and public events. He said building a modern high school on the site has been suggested.

The West Side ballpark’s $500 million price tag would be covered by the sale of $350 million in state-backed bonds at the market rate of 5- to 6-percent interest, said Tese.

The debt service would run $20 million a year, to be split between the city and state and offset by $2 million to $3 million in stadium-lease payments and other stadium revenues from Steinbrenner. “We’re in it for $10 million a year and you’d have a $500 million stadium with a lot of economic activity,” Tese said.

State officials said the remaining $150 million would be generated by private-sector investment in a multi-level parking garage for 7,800 cars, hotel and television and movie studios within the stadium complex. Among those expressing interest in the site is media baron Rupert Murdoch, who reportedly is considering relocating his Fox television studios to the complex.