Newsday (Nassau Edition) from Hempstead, New York • 53

A53 Cablevision Wireless Stake at $1B? I By Harry Berkowitz STAFF WRITER A $100-million investment in wireless services by Cablevision Systems Corp. three years ago has turned into a business worth as much as $1 billion, according to a Wall Street analyst. The value has soared even though Cablevision doesn't even yet offer the so-called personal communications service, which is a digital form of cellular phone service offered widely. The cable TV giant doesn't even directly control the Syosset-based company that holds the PCS licenses in parts of seven states, including New York. It is controlled by a nephew of Cablevision founder and chairman Charles Dolan.

Cablevision, however, has received an unsolicited $750-million bid for the licenses, according to Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif Cohen, who said they are worth as much as $1 billion. Three years ago, John M. Dolan, president of a six-person start-up called North Coast Mobile Communications, won the bidding war for the wireless licenses in 50 markets. At the time, Dolan reportedly said the price his company paid was $117 million. That price, about $2.50 for each of the 47 million potential customers, was much cheaper than the $40 per capita that some companies paid for such licenses in earlier rounds of 11700 11600 BOND YIELDS 500 NASDAQ DOW 10-DAY 11500- 11400- 30-year Treasury 1,445.57 4,189.51 .11,351.30 DOW 11300.

6.74% UP from 6.71% TREND 11200 WT TE MT WTF the auctions held by the Federal Communications Commission. The markets that North Coast sought licenses for, in New York, Ohio, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine and Pennsylvania, partly reflected areas where Cablevision operated its cable television systems. Cablevision provided a major portion of the money for the investment, which gave it 49 percent ownership of North Coast. John Dolan owns 51 percent. Cablevision's backing of North Coast had spurred NextWave Telecom a competing bidder in an earlier round of the auctions, to ask the FCC to reject North Coast.

NextWave, based in Hawthorne, N.Y., and partly owned by Sony said Charles Dolan had "de facto control" of North Coast. Some of the bidders complained about other bidders who may be "fronts" for big companies that might use their resources to boost bidding prices for the licenses, which were meant to go to small businesses. But the FCC said bidders would not have to completely disclose financing until after the auction. John Dolan, who had previously run Cablevision's wireless effort, withdrew from the early round after bidding nearly $1 billion for licenses covering New York City and Cleveland. After consulting with his uncle, John Dolan said that the bidding had reached "a level of speculative excess which we could not economically justify." Newsday Yarwood Roosevelt Raceway is being torn down for a development project that has raised questions from citizens.

Ready, Set, Fight! Raceway redevelopment draws local scrutiny By Thomas Frank STAFF WRITER The Roosevelt Raceway grandstand has been a showcase of Long Island's harness-racing prominence and a symbol of suburban decay. Now, as the 60-year-old track is being demolished to make way for redevelopment, the site is about to become something else: a battleground for community leaders aiming to prevent it from strangling In responding to the NextWave complaints, John Dolan denied North Coast had any agreements with Cablevision. He said North Coast wasn't part of any partnerships, had no revenue and less than $10,000 in assets. Later on, Dolan disclosed in a letter to the FCC that financing for North Coast had come from bank loans guaranteed by Charles Dolan. John Dolan was successful in the later bidding.

Partly because of the recent unsolicited offer for the North Coast licenses, Reif Cohen boosted her 12-month price target for Cablevision's stock to $95 and $100 per share, saying the licenses alone may be worth $4 to $5 per share. On Wednesday, the day her analysis was issued, the stock soared by per share to a closing price of $83.75. Yesterday it added another cents to The unsolicited offer and Wall Street speculation don't necessarily mean the licenses will be sold. "We expect wireless telephone to be part of our bundled telecommunications offerings in the said a spokesman at -based Cablevision, which already offers phone service via TV cable to businesses and homes. The spokesman declined to make further comments about the licenses.

However, Cablevision recently has been narrowing its overall focus to the New York City area, and has been trying to sell its cable systems in other parts of the country. Tech Center Woos SUNY Program By Mark Harrington STAFF WRITER The Long Island Technology Center is negotiating with the State University of New York at Stony Brook to locate the university's Center for Emerging Technologies at the tech center's sprawling Great River facility, according to parties involved in the talks. While an agreement has yet to be reached and other locations are under consideration, the talks were given a crucial boost by the U.S. Department of Education's recent approval of a $693,750 grant for the new SUNY center. The Long Island Technology Center, a square-foot facility located in the former Northrup Grumman Corp.

building in Great River, seeks to become a regional technology mecca housing dozens of tech firms operating in synergistic proximity. Its owners, Rudin Management Co. and Cogswell Realty Group, are attempting to duplicate the success of a similar center at 55 Broadway in the heart of Manhattan's Silicon Alley. Congressman Rick Lazio business leaders and educators at a briefing this week announced the grants, saying that educating and expanding the Island's tech workforce is crucial to its being recognized as a credible technology region. The Center for Emerging Technologies will be an accredited institution operated under the university's school of engineering.

Lazio's office would only say that the center would be located in his district, "probably on the South Shore." Yacov Shamash, dean of engineering and sciences at Stony Brook, said it was "way too early" to say precisely where the center would be located, but called the Great River facility "certainly a possibility." One of the aims of the CET, he said, is to "bring together the the busiest area on Long Island. The grandstand property, 91 acres smack in the middle of Nassau, is the largest vacant tract slated for development in the county and an area of intense scrutiny by local business and civic leaders tired of piecemeal construction that they say has turned thoroughfares like Old Country See RACEWAY on A57 See SUNY on A57.