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American Dream funding may be delayed by Poor Planning and Incompetence

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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

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Bond-issue typo shorts Bergen County project $10M

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APRIL 30, 2015, 11:06 PM    LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 2015, 11:10 PM
BY JOHN C. ENSSLIN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD

What a difference a digit makes.

Bergen County officials revealed this week that a simple error may result in a $10 million shortfall in the money available to pay for a new public works facility in Paramus.

Everyone agrees that the facility, which is expected to open by September, will cost about $18 million.

When the freeholders approved a $115 million bond issue in 2012 to pay for the facility and the new justice center in Hackensack, the facility’s cost was listed as $18 million, county officials said.

But in April 2014, the board approved a revised bond of $147 million to add a sixth floor to the justice center.

That’s when someone apparently “dropped a 1” in the paperwork and recorded the cost of the Paramus facility as $8 million, County Administrator Dominic Novelli said in an interview.

Those documents were not available on Thursday, county officials said.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/bond-issue-typo-shorts-bergen-county-project-10m-1.1322976