Tag: Jim Mac Greevey

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“American Dream Mall ‘ aka Xanadu Opens in October ????

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the staff ;of the Ridgewood blog

East Rutherford NJ, we have heard all this before but the “American Dream Mall ‘ aka Xanadu is threatening to be open October 25th of this year .

It will bring thousands of jobs to the area , tourists from all over the world and promises of traffic nightmares for the next 10 generations.

First conceived in 2003 and most likely the single dumbest idea ever conceived by the state of New Jersey .Just what Bergen County needs another Mall. Originally the Sports Authority folly was known as Xanadu. Billed by Governor Christie as the “ugliest building in the world” it’s gone from one disaster to the next and one owner to the next over the past decade.

Continue reading “American Dream Mall ‘ aka Xanadu Opens in October ????
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From Tax Codes to Traffic, a Megamall’s Risks

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Model of proposed East Rutherford, New Jersey mall, the American Dream
(Ilya Marritz / WNYC)

Jun 5, 2017 · by Ilya Marritz

The company behind American Dream, Triple Five of Canada, is detailing its vision for a mall-entertainment destination in the Meadowlands in New Jersey — and the hazards that could derail the project.

Since the concept of a shopping destination on state-owned marshland was first green-lit in 2003, the mall has encountered many problems. Two earlier developers gave up on the project, formerly known as “Xanadu.”

Now, Triple Five is looking to raise $2.8 billion to finance the final phases of construction. More than half of the funding will be arranged privately through  J.P. Morgan Chase. The remaining $1.1 billion is expected to  come from the sale of tax-free, unrated, government bonds.

For that bond sale, two preliminary offering memoranda are now in circulation: one is for an $800 million bond package backed by payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT); the other is for a $300 million bond package backed by sales tax receipts generated after American Dream opens. The bonds are being sold by the Public Finance Authority of Wisconsin, which is serving as a middleman between the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority and investors.

The documents — over 1,800 pages of them — disclose a wide array of risks that potential investors will have to consider.

https://www.wnyc.org/story/tax-codes-traffic-megamalls-risks/

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Looking for (Another) $1.1 Billion to Finish an Amusement Mall

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By CHARLES V. BAGLIMAY 31, 2017

A $1.1 billion bond offering to help complete construction of the American Dream mall in the New Jersey Meadowlands went forward this week, nine months after the sale was originally planned.

In the story of the mall’s creation, the delay was a minor speed bump. Thirteen years after it was first announced, the project is on its third developer and is being built in the face of growing doubts about the viability of shopping malls and retail stores across the country. The associated-risks section of the bond offering runs to 38 pages.

But the current developer, Triple Five Group, contends that American Dream’s blend of retail stores and entertainment venues — the sprawling complex is to include a six-acre indoor water park, a Ferris wheel, movie theaters and an indoor amusement park, as well as Saks Fifth Avenue, Hermès, Toys “R” Us and Old Navy — is the future and the “complete opposite of a traditional mall.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/31/nyregion/looking-for-another-1-1-billion-to-finish-an-amusement-mall.html?_r=0

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American Dream Meadowlands back to life? Badly-needed funding arrives

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John Brennan , Staff Writer, @BergenBrennanPublished 11:41 a.m. ET May 20, 2017 | Updated 10:47 p.m. ET May 20, 2017

In a move that could turn out to be the trigger for turning the long-dormant American Dream Meadowlands into a reality, project operator Triple Five announced late Friday that it has closed on $1.6 billion in construction financing for the long-stalled project.

The deal is expected to set the stage in the coming days or weeks for a billion-dollar bond issuance that would provide the rest of the funding for the 2.9 million square foot first phase of the entertainment and retail project.

https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/2017/05/20/american-dream-meadowlands-back-life-badly-needed-funding-arrives/334012001/

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The Mother of All Stupid Idea’s : Trenton Run NJ state bank plan

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Governor candidate Murphy pitches his state bank plan to bankers. Opponents pounce.

By Brent Johnson | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on April 19, 2017 at 8:30 AM, updated April 19, 2017 at 10:54 AM

TRENTON — Phil Murphy, the early Democratic front-runner for governor, defended his proposal to create a state bank to an audience peppered with skeptics Tuesday: members of New Jersey’s banking industry.

Meanwhile, speaking to the same group, a number of his fellow candidates from both parties — including Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, the Republican favorite — assailed the idea as being dangerous for the Garden State.

Murphy was one of five gubernatorial hopefuls who addressed a gathering of the New Jersey Bankers Association at the Trenton Masonic Temple. The candidates pitched their plans to stimulate the state’s economy in the wake of Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican whose final term ends in January.

The speech came as critics are worried that Murphy’s proposal for a state bank — a key plank in his economic platform — would hurt local banks in New Jersey and that political influence and corruption could seep into the process.

https://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/04/murphy_defends_state_bank_plan_to_bankers_and_oppo.html#incart_river_home

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American Dream Meadowlands $1B bond sale still on hold

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Attorneys for Triple Five, the developer of American Dream Meadowlands, told the state Appellate Court in September that immediate dismissal of a lawsuit against the project must be made so as not to impede a complex financial sequence that must culminate on Nov. 4. The court dismissed the case the next day.

Yet more than nine weeks later, the project site looks as deserted as it has since before Christmas – and as it has many times over the past decade. The bond issuance plan – which has expanded to a planned $1.15 billion offering – was approved by the state for the first time in fall 2013.

https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/business/meadowlands-matters/2017/01/19/american-dream-meadowlands-1b-bond-sale-still-hold/96791274/?utm_campaign=Observer_NJ_Politics&utm_content=New%20Campaign&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=New%20Jersey%20Politics

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BRICKS OR CLICKS? THE AMERICAN DREAM MEGAMALL VERSUS ONLINE SHOPPING

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JOHN REITMEYER, ILYA MARRITZ, AND SUSAN BERFIELD | DECEMBER 13, 2016
American Dream’s developers argue that they’re not just building a mall, they’re creating a global destination

This is the second installment of Mall Madness, a five-part series on the American Dream retail and entertainment complex under construction in the Meadowlands. The series was produced through a reporting collaboration between WNYC, NJ Spotlight, and Bloomberg Businessweek. The first story and the third story, and fourth story are also available online.

As the retail industry undergoes a massive transformation thanks to new technology and online shopping, is there any mall out there that can be considered “Internet-proof?” Maybe not, but that’s exactly what Triple Five, the developer of the American Dream megamall in the Meadowlands, is betting on.

American Dream, the garish, multicolored complex that sits alongside the New Jersey Turnpike in East Rutherford, is designed to be not just a mall, but a giant entertainment destination, featuring an amusement park, full-size ice-skating rink, indoor ski slope, waterpark, towering observation wheel, and, oh yes, some stores, too.

https://www.njspotlight.com/stories/16/12/12/bricks-or-clicks-the-american-dream-megamall-versus-online-shopping/?utm_campaign=Observer_NJ_Politics&utm_content=New%20Campaign&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=New%20Jersey%20Politics

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American Dream Meadowlands to miss another bond sale target

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BY JOHN BRENNAN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD

The sale of $1.15 billion in bonds to fund the remaining construction of the American Dream Meadowlands shopping and entertainment complex will not take place as scheduled on Friday, a state official said Wednesday.

But Wayne Hasenbalg, the president of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which owns the land where the $5.2 billion project is being built, added that he does not foresee any impediments to a closing taking place within the next 30 days.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/american-dream-meadowlands-to-miss-another-bond-sale-target-1.1686553?utm_campaign=Observer_NJ_Politics&utm_content=New%20Campaign&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=New%20Jersey%20Politics

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American Dream ongoing nightmare

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August 12, 2016

The state can’t scrape up the money to fix the state’s roads and bridges, fully fund its schools or pay for the pensions of retired state workers. But, somehow, it found a way this week to approve an $800 million bond after previously authorizing $350 million in tax breaks for a $3.1 billion megamall in the Meadowlands.

The state’s Local Finance Board, an arm of the state Department of Community Affairs, this week approved the bond for the massive Meadowland America Dream shopping and entertainment complex, known during a previous incarnation as Xanadu. After two false starts attributable to the project’s inability to get private financing, the project was taken over in 2011 by Triple Five, a Canadian firm, nearly a decade after it was first approved.

Last week’s approval by the Local Finance Board, and the approval of a financing agreement a day earlier by the mall’s landlord, the N.J. Sports & Exposition Authority, came unaccompanied by any outrage from state lawmakers other than Michael Doherty, R-Warren.

Why the silence? Perhaps legislators didn’t want to call further attention to the irony of their providing bonding for a private venture at a time they can’t scrape up enough money for the state’s basic needs, despite having the highest property taxes in the nation.

https://www.app.com/story/opinion/editorials/2016/08/12/american-dream-meadowlands-bond/88634812/

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HOLD ONTO YOUR WALLETS: PROPERTY TAXES IN NEW JERSEY INCREASED BY THEIR FASTEST RATE IN FOUR YEARS IN 2015.

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Average Property taxes paid

Alpine $20,880.00
Tenafly $18,787.00
Demarest $17,937.00
Upper Saddle River $17,112.00
Haworth $16,940.00
Ridgewood $16,798.00
Saddle River $16,670.00
Franklin Lks $16,635.00
Old Tappan $15,765.00
Glen Rock $15,157.00
Woodcliff lake $15,139.00
HoHoKus $15,045.00
Allendale $14,551.00
Oradell $13,796.00
Wyckoff  $13,280.00
Midland Park $11,020.00
Waldwick $10,396.00
Washington Twp 10,157.00
Fair Lawn $10,012.00
Mahwah $8,154.00

file photo by Boyd Loving

EXCLUSIVE: Property taxes up $537 million

HOLD ONTO YOUR WALLETS: PROPERTY TAXES IN NEW JERSEY INCREASED BY THEIR FASTEST RATE IN FOUR YEARS IN 2015.

Michael Symons,

Hold onto your wallets: Property taxes in New Jersey increased by their fastest rate in four years in 2015, with landowners shelling out an extra $537 million.

The hike pushed the average local tax bill to $8,354 for homeowners, up $193 from the prior year, according to data compiled exclusively by the Asbury Park Press. That’s an increase of 2.4 percent, despite a supposed 2 percent cap enacted in 2010.

The jump marks the second straight year New Jersey’s property tax hike has gotten bigger, after three years of slowing growth in Gov. Chris Christie’s first term. Monmouth and Ocean counties fared worse most of the state with tax boosts of 2.6 percent and 3.3 percent, respectively.

The trend undercuts one of Christie’s selling points as he touts his gubernatorial record on the GOP presidential campaign trail. On his campaign website, Christie says property taxes are rising at their slowest pace “in more than two decades.” Growth has grown since dipping to 1.3 percent in 2013.

The new accounting tells a costly different story — in a state where homeowners already pay the highest-in-the-nation property taxes. That burden helped drive nearly 14,000 to sign an Asbury Park Press petition urging elected officials to cut property taxes. The petition came in tandem with Asbury Park Press’s investigation of the tax crisis last fall.

Stay or leave?

Adrienne DiPietro’s property taxes have tripled in the 20 years she has lived in Eatontown. She remains optimistic elected officials will do something about the problem but says “I’m not holding my breath.” She is considering whether she and her husband, Paul, will stay in New Jersey. Both are retirees.

“All of our retirement income, we have to start thinking about this in the next five years or so: Do we want to stay here and keep coughing up that much taxes?” DiPietro said. “Do we want to stay here, because the taxes are only going up and up?”

https://www.app.com/story/insider/2016/01/08/nj-property-tax-increases/78504096/

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Xanadu : A monument to NJ greedy self serving politicians ?

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called the ugliest building ever built Xanadu

Xanadu : A monument to NJ greedy self serving politicians ?

Empty shell of American Dream, MetLife Stadium’s ugly neighbor, still awaits makeover
Saturday February 1, 2014, 11:36 PM
BY  CHRISTOPHER MAAG
STAFF WRITER
The Record

When Marianne Krause goes to a concert in another city, she keeps an eye out for beautiful buildings nearby. But when millions of people look to East Rutherford this weekend to watch the Super Bowl, Krause hopes they keep their eyes locked firmly on the game.

That’s because right next door to MetLife Stadium sits a gigantic, empty, multicolored mall once known as Xanadu, the long-dormant retail and entertainment project that Governor Christie once called one of the ugliest buildings in America.

The fewer people who notice it, Krause figures, the better.

“I’m embarrassed by it, and I think the state will be embarrassed by it,” said Krause, 29, of East Rutherford. “It’s really ugly.”

When developers originally proposed building a megamall in the Meadowlands in 2003, they envisioned a completion date sometime in 2006. In the years since, the project now called American Dream has blown through two developers, one name change and $2 billion. Across the parking lot, one stadium was razed and a new one was built.

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/eastrutherford/Empty_shell_of_American_Dream_MetLife_Stadiums_ugly_neighbor_still_awaits_makeover.html#sthash.Kuqa2GDj.dpuf