Business & Tech
$800 Million Bond Sale For American Dream Meadowlands Project Can Go Forward
The Department of Community Affairs gave permission for developer to seek public bonds to finance the huge entertainment and retail project.
BERGEN COUNTY, NJ — The state Department of Community Affairs voted Tuesday to allow the sale of $800 million in taxpayer bonds to fund long-stalled American Dream Meadowlands project.
The vote comes a day after the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority gave developer Triple Five approval to approach the Wisconsin Public Financing Agency to work together to issue the bonds.
The $800 million is in addition to the $350 million in funding from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority to help finance the multi-billion entertainment and retail destination.
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The $1.1 billion in bonds needed to finance the project comes after a nine-month wait for work to resume at the 90-acre site adjacent to MetLife stadium on Route 3.
The project could cost $5 billion when it is finally completed, Dan Ghermezian, a principal with Triple Five previously told The New York Times.
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A vote on the sale of the bonds was slated to take place last year, but the vote was postponed.
American Dream Meadowlands is billing itself as being the entertainment and shopping destination on the East Coast. The state-of-the-art facility will have North America's largest indoor amusement park and indoor waterpark, an indoor ski village with an 800-foot slope, and a 300-foot-tall observation wheel.
A dine-in movie theater with X4D technology, indoor aquarium, LEGOLAND, and a 55,000-square-foot Toys "R" Us store are also planned for the facility.
Banana Republic, Gap, MAC, Microsoft, Zara, Pink, and Victoria’s Secret who have committed to opening up shop.
Triple Five, the third developer of the project, is also looking to close on $1.5 billion of private financing, according to NorthJersey.com. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is expected to underwrite $1 billion in bonds Triple Five plans on issuing at the end of September.
The project is expected to bring about 5,000 construction jobs and another 18,000 when the facility opens, which, now, according to NorthJersey.com, looks like it will be the summer of 2018, about a year later than Triple Five projected in October.
The sports authority approved two resolutions Tuesday regarding the issuance of the $800 million in bonds. In one, the authority said it is willing to issue the non-recourse bonds. The borough of East Rutherford was originally slated to issue the bonds. The East Rutherford Borough Council to move responsibility of the bonds to the sports authority.
Email: daniel.hubbard@patch.com
Related: 'Most Expensive Retail Project on Earth' Coming To Meadowlands
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