NOVEMBER 25, 2015 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2015, 1:21 AM
BY JOHN BRENNAN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
The sale of $1 billion in government bonds — a key financing element to ensure there is sufficient funding to complete the American Dream Meadowlands shopping and entertainment complex — may not be issued until early next year, officials said.
Tony Armlin, vice president of development and construction for Triple Five, the Canada-based conglomerate that is building American Dream, had said in an interview in September that the bonds would be issued “in the next several weeks.” But Debbie Patire, a Triple Five spokeswoman, confirmed Tuesday a revised timeline for issuing the bonds that executives at the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority first described last week.
That state agency is expected to issue about $350 million in bonds that will be repaid to institutional investors via the transfer of Triple Five’s annual tax savings through a state grant.
“We continue to work aggressively toward a sale of the bonds prior to the New Year — but, given the holidays, there is a potential that this could shift to after the new year,” Patire said.
Triple Five, which built and operates the Mall of America in Minnesota, was brought in to revive construction on the long-dormant American Dream project, then known as Meadowlands Xanadu, in mid-2011; company executives have projected as recently as September that it will open in the fall of 2017. It is unclear if that opening date will have to be pushed back in light of the revised timetable for issuing the bonds.
The sports authority agreed in August to replace the Bergen County Improvement Authority as the issuer of those bonds, with Armlin of Triple Five saying at the time that the sports authority was better positioned to issue them “within 30 to 60 days,” or by mid-October.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/nj-state-news/american-dream-funding-delay-1.1462117
Could just as well be talking about the Ridgewood Parking Garage.
Union boondoggle – kaching!
Yep, let’s just hope it is the same headline for the parking garage. Let’s delay it forever. Please
Comes as no surprise the state and sports authority should have never been involved.
Someone should slip this under the 3amigos “private meeting” door because this is what they our driving our Village to.
This place, if ever completed will be as popular as the aquarium in Camden.
Poor planning? Incompetence? You can’t be talking about the Garden State. Just look at the “superb” job the state did hosting the Super Bowl! hahahaha…
what a waste of money.
anyone who thinks Ridgewood’s Village engineer can build a parking garage on-time and on-budget, without a bunch of change orders to drive up the cost, is fooling themselves. This is north Bergen in NJ. Taxpayers are screwed…. again.