Romantic-era poet Samuel Coleridge described Xanadu as a symbol of excess, a stately pleasure dome. It’s also a development concept by the Virginia-based Mills and Cranford-based Mack-Cali companies that was accepted on Feb. 12 by a New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority selection committee to remake the 104-acre Meadowlands site currently occupied by the Continental Airlines Arena.
The 1.3 billion Xanadu development could begin construction as early as this summer and become fully operational by 2009.
If everything goes as planned, the Nets basketball team and the Devils ice hockey team will leave the Continental Arena in 2005 or 2006 for a proposed arena in downtown Newark. That would clear the way for Mills and Mack-Cali to demolish the arena – although Mills and Mack-Cali have said Xanadu can accommodate an arena for the Nets and Devils if the teams decide to stay.
“This award re-affirms that The Mills Corporation is the country’s leading development company,” said Mills Chairman and CEO, Laurence C. Siegle. “We’ve taken our proven strategy of developing innovative concepts, anticipating trends and engaging consumers’ imaginations and creating living masterpiece for the Meadowlands Community.”
Mills Corporation, one of the partners in developing the project, called Xanadu its “Crown jewel and bellwether by which all other developments will be measured.”
While many who support the project believe it will provide sorely needed jobs to and a boost to the local economy, some merchants in Bergen and Hudson Counties believe the project will destroy many smaller businesses.
The project, when completed, will have three themed zones: sports & recreation, kid’s activities, and fashion. The sports-theme entertainment complex will feature the Snow Dome – America’s first year-round indoor Alpine ski resort with real snow and chair lifts. This theme will also offer features such as The House of Blues, a Cheesecake Factory restaurant, the UnderWater World aquarium and a PBS Kids’ Pavilion. It will also include a baseball park to house the Bergen Cliff Hawk minor league baseball team and the Bergen River Dogs professional lacrosse team. There will be active and spectator activities include an ESPN Skate Park, indoor surfing wave, a grand movie palace, and other live entertainment venues – including a wildlife museum. The fashion element includes a luxury spa, cooking school and a variety of European retail stores.
The project, which will have connections from the arena site over Route 120 to the parking lot of Giants Stadium, will include stores, offices, and restaurants as well as a small-scale auto racing track.
The Mills proposal offered a larger payment to lease the land – $160 million when the construction begins, and more in taxes – $860.7 million overall.
Office buildings and a hotel
Xanadu is a 4.76 million square foot complex including 2.2 million square feet of office space inside four 14-story 440,000 square foot buildings and a 520-room hotel with conference and exhibition facility.
Officials estimate the project will product 19,000 construction jobs and about 20,000 permanent jobs once it is complete. Revenue to New Jersey: $27 million a year in lease payments; $100 million a year in taxes. To lead visitors to Mills’ development, the developer will give $65 million to the state for road improvements.
NJSEA President George Zoffinger said the approval could move the Meadowlands onto the mass transit priority list with the state and federal government. In the 1970s when the Meadowlands Sports Complex was constructed, state and federal authorities promised there would be a mass transit link. But it was never built and the project was never put onto any of the priority lists.
“Xanadu will force the state and federal government to look more closely at providing a mass transit element,” Zoffinger said.
Friends of the project
The plan got a boost in December when the football Giants, the most powerful tenant in the Meadowlands Sports Complex, endorsed it. Leaders of the Meadowlands Regional Chamber of Commerce cheered the decision. Rich Fritzky, spokesperson for the Chamber, refuted critics’ claims that a massive cluster of shops in Mills’ plan would threaten local downtowns.
“Their track record is that their developments have been ancillary to downtowns,” Fritzky said.
“What Mills put on the table from an economic fiscal and use vantage point was compelling. They’re guaranteeing the dollars that make the project a win-win for the state, the complex and local municipalities.”
Dennis Marco, chairman of the Chamber, called it a historic decision.
“After all, we’re talking about a capital investment that will be greater than that made in the three existing Sports Complex facilities combined,” he said.
Jim Kirkos, Chamber president, added, “We have to move forward and propel the economic engine that public officials just like to talk about.”
Xanadu has also received endorsements from several of North Jersey’s leading politicians, including state Assembly Speaker Albio Sires (D-33rd Dist.) and State Sen. Bernard Kenny (D-31st Dist.).
Sires, in a letter to Zoffinger, said, “the entire region and, indeed, New Jersey as a whole, stands to be a huge winner.”
While Sires said he has historically been concerned about how any new development in the Meadowlands would impact retail merchants in Hudson County, he said that after carefully studying the Xanadu proposal, he felt comfortable with its primary focus as an entertainment complex.
Kenny also acknowledged the entertainment element as a draw for tourists into the area.
“The variety of unique venues that will be located at Xanadu, and the visitors it will bring, will give the North Jersey economy a much needed shot in the arm,” Kenny said.
Environmentalists literally applauded Mills’ promise to give up the Empire Tract, a 600-acre piece of land in Carlstadt on which Mills originally proposed to construct a mall. The company promised to give nearly 587 acres of wetlands to the state for preservation, said Sports Authority Chairman Carl Goldberg.
“We’re waiting on the next phase which is the developer’s agreement,” said Hackensack Riverkeeper Bill Sheehan. “That will be a binding contract that will give the land over to preservation.”
Sheehan said that the Xanadu project also addressed other environmental concerns such as management of storm water and waste water on-site, the use of alternative energy, and the use of recycled materials. He said they were all possible for the new development.
“A big part of this is the transport element,” Sheehan said. “Mills-Cali’s $65 million in transportation improvements promises to minimize traffic problems in the area.”
Not everybody is happy
Many local merchants view the plan’s retail component as a threat to their businesses. Secaucus insurance agent and local political activist Frank MacCormack has raised serious concerns about the project, saying that he believed the arena removal was a bad idea.
“There is nothing wrong with the arena and I think knocking it down to build a mall is crazy,” he said.
Opponents say that the project will help to deteriorate traditional downtown districts in places like Rutherford, West New York and Jersey City.
Among those speaking out against the project is former state Sen. Raymond Bateman, a sports authority commissioner and frequent critic of Zoffinger, who claimed the traffic problems have yet to be solved.
Rutherford Mayor James Cassella said he feared the new mall project might have a negative impact on proposed upgraded downtown district in Rutherford.
On the day that the decision was rendered, the Committee for a Better Meadowlands released its petitions against the project. This committee consists of several hundred merchants and business people in the towns neighboring the proposed construction site.
They scheduled meetings with Assembly members Rose Marie Heck (R-38th Dist.) and Anthony Impreveduto (D-32nd Dist.).
Impreveduto previously expressed doubts about the whole arena removal and mall construction, saying that he disagreed with moving the teams to Newark. Impreveduto believes that the sports franchises will suffer as a result and that the removal of a viable arena and construction of a mall is a needless expense.
The committee had collected thousands of signatures from people in the area objecting to the development proposal. Copies of these petitions were also forwarded to Gov. Jim McGreevey and Zoffinger. As many 500 individual store owners have also written letters in opposition to the project. The committee said its efforts were nonpartisan.
“Opposition to building a mega-mall with 400 stores crosses all political boundaries and speaks to the values of our region to protect its downtown and discourage additional traffic,” said Tom Steimle, proprietor of Bob Goldstein’s men’s clothing store in Rutherford.
The merchants were particularly upset by the support for the mall by Assembly Speaker Albio Sires and State Sen. Bernard Kenny.
Xanadon’t
“Perhaps some elected officials assume that we won’t be hurt by this, but we wish they could have asked us, because a mega-mall in the Meadowlands will be devastating to merchants,” said Sami-v-Kahja, owner of Party Tyme at the Mall at Mill Creek, who has been in operation in Secaucus for about six years. “Any proposal that boasts of 400 additional stores will irreparable destroy the region’s economy. There are plenty of shopping malls in the area already and there are also stores closings because there is too much retail. We certainly do not need another mall.”
Sami-v-Kahja said many of the existing malls are already under used, and even the construction of malls as small as those in Edgewater have had a negative impact on business. Changes in demographics have also contributed to a loss in business as a new immigrant population with different shopping patterns moves into this area and other residents move out to places like Wayne.
“When you look at most of the malls, about 80 percent of the stores are the same in each,” he said. “What is the point in that?”
X-town traffic
Traffic is a particular concern because even on regular days with no sporting events, Route 3 and Route 17 are jammed. During sporting events, these routes get even worse.
“If they build a mega-mall, how much worse will traffic get?” Sami-v-Kahja asked.
Others who have spoken out against the mall project include Elliot Brah of Lord’s in Journal Square in Jersey City; Joseph Turan, owner of Mill Creek Art Gallery Secaucus; and John Adams of Marty’s Shoes, the corporate office of which is in Secaucus.
“My objection is to the condition of traffic,” Adams said. “It is already pretty bad where we are located in Secaucus.”
Adams also said the additional stores will only hurt small businesses in the area. “There are already too many malls in this area,” he said. “Why do they need to build another? A lot of mom-and-pop stores are going to go out of business because of this.”