By John Brennan
Triple Five, the parent company of the Mall of America in Minnesota, has completed an agreement with lenders to take over operations of Meadowlands Xanadu, a Mall of America spokesman said Thursday.
Except it wouldn’t be known as Xanadu anymore — the 2 million-square-foot retail and entertainment project would take on a new name, American Dream Meadowlands.
The deal is subject to approval by Governor Christie and the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority. But state officials have been busy since last December — when Triple Five signed a letter of intent to try to close the complex, multibillion-dollar deal — working on reviving the fortunes of a project that has been mostly dormant for more than two years.
“We will have more to say soon on New Jersey’s role and the future of the project,” said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for Christie.
The first phase of the operation is scheduled to open by fall 2013, said Maureen Bausch, Mall of America’s executive vice president of business development — months ahead of the February 2014 Super Bowl.
Bausch said that the new name “connotes opportunity not just for us, but for the community, with new jobs and greater tax revenues, plus local greater local entertainment year-round.”
“We are taking a building which people haven’t maybe had so much pride in yet, and turning it into a place that you’ll have to visit every time you come to the area,” Bausch added.
“I was a little surprised when I first saw the name, but it’s easy to adapt to it,” Kirkos said. “The whole region is a melting pot.”
Kirkos, who has followed the project’s ups and downs for nearly a decade, said that Triple Five “understands the power of what the sports complex can be as a destination” better than predecessors Colony and Mills Corp.
“That’s why we’re so excited to see this take another step here,” Kirkos said.
The new name also received a thumbs-up from East Rutherford Mayor James Cassella.
“It’s a good name — it has ‘America’ in it,” Cassella said. “I guess it’s a takeoff on their Mall of America project. It’s going to take some time to get used to not calling it Xanadu anymore. I hope this version has more success than Xanadu did.”
Ray Bateman, the former New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority chairman and the board’s chief Xanadu critic at the time it was approved in 2003, said he was glad the name will change.
“Now if they’d just repaint the place, maybe we’ll have something,” Bateman said.
Triple Five executives last year promised state officials that the project would be given a new name as well as a facelift for the much-reviled exterior. A Quinnipiac University poll released last week found that 79 percent of New Jerseyans familiar with the project believe it is “ugly” compared with only 8 percent who find it “attractive.”
Former sports authority president George Zoffinger also approved of the change.
“I love it,” Zoffinger said. “It’s high time everyone got behind this project and all the jobs it will create, and stop worrying about the name and the outside of the place.”
That was also the sentiment of Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan, who did not offer an opinion about the new name.
“I just welcome anyone that wants to finish the project and bring jobs to Bergen County,” Donovan said.
The project is expected to apply for and receive a tax break from the state’s Economic Development Authority worth as much as $200 million on $1 billion of new construction to complete the project.
Legal wrangling and financial problems of Mills Corp., the original developer, contributed to years of delays. Construction on the exterior was mostly completed as of March 2009, when a key partner defaulted on a construction loan and construction on the interior halted.
