EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ-Casino gambling will be coming to the Meadowlands, as the Meadowlands Regional Chamber announced a concept plan for the redevelopment of the Sports Complex here that includes a casino, convention center, hotels, entertainment and sports facilities. The total development will consist of 2.5 million square feet and will generate more than 15,000 construction jobs and 25,000 permanent jobs.
“We have everything we need to succeed except an active plan,” Jim Kirkos, chief executive of the Meadowlands Regional Chamber and the Meadowlands Liberty Convention and Visitors Bureau, said during a press event. “The Meadowlands Sports Complex is an entity crying for strategic business thinking, but it is often thwarted by political considerations.”
The plan calls for a $600-million, 1,000-room resort hotel with a 130,000-square-foot casino floor with 3,000 slot positions and 100 table games. In addition to the resort casino, the plan also calls for a dual convention/youth and amateur athletic center, the replacement of the Big M racing track with a more modern facility connected to the casino and an aquatics center.
All of the facilities will be linked to the recent New Jersey Transit rail extension that provides service to New York City’s Penn Station. The plan was conceptualized in collaboration with Chamber members and has been in the works for more than a year, pending the resolution of the Xanadu mall site. In December, the lenders who took control of the never-opened mall announced a non-binding agreement with Triple Five Corp., the owner of Mall of America, to complete the project. Published reports put Xanadu’s opening date in late 2013 or early 2014. According to notes distributed today, the Chamber’s plan utilizes the Sports Complex’s land for the highest and best use for sports and entertainment.
“The relevance of our facilities has degraded shamefully because for too long we had no business plan to maintain our market relevance,” Kirkos said. “But we have a chance to recover because the infrastructure around our site and its inherent location advantages are extraordinary. In a state desperate for tax revenues and job growth, we have no alternative except to maximize the value of this critical asset, which will impact both the region and the state.”
One question is how the addition of casino gambling will affect the struggling casinos of Atlantic City some 100 miles to the south. “There is no reason for the future of the Meadowlands to be postponed while Atlantic City works out its troubles,” Kirkos said. “Even if the state were to start issuing RFPs today, it would take at least four years to open any one of the facilities we have proposed. Atlantic City’s future will be long settled by then. In the meantime, the parking lots in Yonkers, NY and Bethlehem, PA are full of cars with New Jersey plates that may never go back to Atlantic City, but would come to the Meadowlands.”
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