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Shopping Centers Today -> March 2003
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MILLS WINS HARD-FOUGHT N.J. BID
BY IAN RITTER
The New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority has chosen The Mills Corp. to redevelop the Continental Airlines Arena site in the Meadowlands, just west of New York City.
Mills, in partnership with Cranford, N.J.-based office developer Mack-Cali Realty Corp., has proposed a 4.8 million-square-foot, $1.3 billion mixed-use project for the site, to be called Meadowlands Xanadu. The plan calls for 594,000 square feet of retail, 1.6 million square feet of entertainment and 1.7 million square feet of office space. The entertainment components include ESPN Skate Park, Meadowlands YMCA and a minor league baseball park.
The Mills bid beat out a joint proposal by Forest City Ratner and Hartz Mountain Industries, and a plan by Westfield America Trust.
“All of the proposals were exceptional, but the Mills/Mack-Cali stood head and shoulders above the rest,” said Carl Goldberg, chairman of the sports authority’s selection committee.
The site’s redevelopment coincides with efforts to relocate the New Jersey Devils hockey and New Jersey Nets basketball teams, which now play in Continental Airlines Arena, to a new, as yet unbuilt, stadium in Newark, N.J. The stadium has not gotten the go-ahead yet, though the Newark City Council gave preliminary approval in October.
Forest City Ratner (a New York City affiliate of Forest City Enterprises) and Secaucus, N.J.-based Hartz proposed the 4.1 million-square-foot, $850 million Expo Park at the Meadowlands. It was to include 356,000 square feet of retail, 478,000 square feet of entertainment and 2 million square feet of office space, plus a hotel.
Westfield, meanwhile, fielded a 3.9 million-square-foot, $1.2 billion plan for a mixed-use project to be called Arena Place, which included 260,000 square feet of retail, 76,000 square feet of entertainment and 2.2 million square feet of office space, plus 1,000 hotel rooms.
Mills has been interested in the area since 1998, when it first proposed a value megamall dubbed Meadowlands Mills on a site called the Empire Tract. That project has been delayed, however, because the area contains hundreds of acres of wetland. When Mills submitted the bid to redevelop the Continental Airlines Arena, the company said it would turn the Empire Tract site over to the state of New Jersey if selected for the Xanadu Meadowlands project.
“It’s probably the most dynamic site in the United States,” Mills Chairman and CEO Laurence C. Siegel told SCT in January, referring to the Xanadu Meadowlands site. “It’s in the shadow of the skyline of Manhattan.”
Morgan Stanley predicted last month that the company will develop a “financially profitable project,” though cautioned that Mills’ beating out the other developers does not ipso facto make Meadowlands Xanadu a reality. “There is simply no guarantee that the [potentially lengthy] exclusive negotiations will go well and that Mills will ultimately break ground on the project,” the New York City-based investment bank said.
The competing developers ran ads in New Jersey newspapers prior to the selection. Forest City’s and Hartz’s ads charged that Mills’ plan would create traffic problems. A Mills ad, meanwhile, began: “Hi. It’s me again — Meadowlands Xanadu. I said I’d be back in touch, and I always keep my promises.”
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