By RONALD SMOTHERS
SECAUCUS, N.J. -- The principal owner of the New Jersey Devils hockey team unveiled Thursday a plan to build a new $350 million arena for the team along with an entertainment complex on Hoboken's Hudson River waterfront and atop New Jersey Transit railroad tracks.
The proposal, which has been in the planning for nearly two years, envisions the creation of a new 3.3 million-square-foot complex called Hoboken Station on the riverfront amid the Beaux-Arts style arches of the historic Hoboken Terminal. In addition to the 18,500-seat arena, the complex would include a 20-screen multiplex theater, retail stores, theme restaurants and waterfront parks.
The arena plan envisions, among other things, 100 luxury boxes and 3,000 club seats, features that can command premium prices. It would be built on a platform over the rail tracks and has been designed by Ellerbe Becket, the firm that designed Boston's Fleet Center and the MCI Center in Washington. The planners say the complex could be completed by 2003.
While the owner of the Devils, John J. McMullen, hailed the plan as one that did not seek any public funds, its success appeared to depend on the completion of a number of rail projects that are under construction and a highway project that is still being studied or in the planning stages.
The Devils' plan is the latest entry into the hot competition over what city will emerge as the center for New Jersey's sports. It comes just a week before the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority is to present its plans for refurbishing the Meadowlands sports complex in East Rutherford, now the home of all five of the state's major teams.
The Devils' Hoboken proposal was released amid reports of the near-completion of the New Jersey Nets' plan for a new basketball and hockey arena in downtown Newark. The Nets' proposal also includes a 30,000-seat stadium for the Metro Stars soccer team in the city.
Raymond Chambers, the millionaire philanthropist who helped establish the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, which opened 17 months ago, is a part owner of the Nets. He has vowed to direct a sizable part of the team's revenues to education and revitalization efforts for Newark.
Key to the financial success of the Nets' plan is having two teams using the Newark arena. But McMullen's proposal seemed to make it clear that he had no intention of moving his hockey team to Newark.
In an interview today, McMullen said the Newark site had "a lot of hurdles," not the least of which was the potential transportation bottlenecks. He said he had yet to have any discussions with the Nets' owners and added "I have no reason to."
In the final analysis, it will be Gov. Christine Todd Whitman who will decide which site or sites will be accepted because all would need some form of state financing. The Newark proposal estimates that it would require $200 million in private funds and $100 million in public financing. If teams were to stay in the state-operated Meadowlands, that location would require significant state financing for improvements.
And although Hoboken is a Hudson County transportation hub, where PATH trains, New Jersey Transit trains, buses and ferry service converge and the Hudson-Bergen light rail transit system is under construction, road access is problematic.
It would require completion of the proposed waterfront expressway project, a highway planned to run along an abandoned railroad right-of-way called the Bergen Arches from the New Jersey Turnpike through Jersey City and then to the Hoboken riverfront. But this project is still in the planning stages and without construction financing.
