The proposal for a convention center at the Meadowlands Sports Complex took a big step forward Monday, as backers asked the governor’s office for $2.7 million to $3.8 million to fund a state-supervised review of whether to build it.
Their appeal is meant to be heard even further south.
Atlantic City leaders have long raised concerns that a big new convention center in North Jersey would pull business away from their own, and that state money should go to fixing what Atlantic City already has.
Backers of the Meadowlands project say Atlantic City has the story backward. In their view, the city’s convention business isn’t fading because something new may be built up north. It’s fading because Atlantic City stopped drawing an audience.
Even more, it hopes the state helps AC, too.
Jim Kirkos, CEO of the Meadowlands Chamber, has been pushing the Meadowlands project for more than a decade. He says the two places aren’t in the same fight.
Kirkos said the timeline for the project makes both feasible.
Meadowlands backers say they aren’t asking Atlantic City to lose so the Meadowlands can win. Their position: if the state funds a Meadowlands study, it should fund one for Atlantic City. If the state finances the Meadowlands project, it should be ready to finance whatever Atlantic City’s study says it needs, too.
Kirkos says he’d support that.
“We’re in this together,” he said. “When we work together as a state, good things happen.”
Backers also offer a promise: the Meadowlands doesn’t want the major conventions Atlantic City already has, such as the League of Municipalities and the N.J. Education Association’s annual teachers’ convention. They want the conventions that go to New York City — or skip the area entirely.
They go further. They say Atlantic City should be a partner, with its own booth at Meadowlands events, pitching out-of-state visitors on a fall meeting at the beach. More conventions coming to New Jersey, they argue, should mean more business for both.
Backers say their research shows the two venues serve different markets. They point to three sources: an earlier demand study, focus groups with industry leaders and a new nationwide survey of meeting planners by the research firm Cygnal.
Planners in that survey already think well of Atlantic City. They rated it 69-12 favorable, slightly ahead of the Meadowlands at 65-13. Both sit in the same range as Boston, Baltimore, Washington and Philadelphia.
The Meadowlands’ pitch is aimed elsewhere. Cost is planners’ top factor in choosing a site, and the survey found the Meadowlands beats Manhattan on cost, 71-9. It also wins on ease of getting attendees there (56-16) and on appeal (49-25). The facility targets mid-size events of 2,000 or more people, the shows that get priced out of New York.
The real competition, in other words, is across the Hudson, not down the Parkway.
Ron Simoncini, the President of the lead consultant on the plan, Axiom Communications, said it’s a win-win.
“All of the study shows, this project would benefit both North Jersey and South Jersey,” he said.
The proposed center would sit on the former Meadowlands Arena site in East Rutherford. Plans call for approximately 460,000 square feet of exhibition, meeting and ballroom space, a multipurpose arena, a 1,000-room headquarters hotel envisioned as privately financed, and direct connections to American Dream.
The Meadowlands Chamber and the Meadowlands 2040 Foundation estimate the development at $3.8 billion to $4.25 billion, built through a public-private partnership. They project 5,000 union construction jobs, more than 3,700 permanent jobs, 2 million visitors a year and $30.4 billion in long-term economic activity.
The money requested now would pay for a business plan, a financing strategy and engineering, environmental and operational reviews. A work group appointed by the governor would oversee it, with the N.J. Economic Development Authority and the N.J. Sports and Exposition Authority taking part.
Backers stress the funding is a commitment to decide whether to build, not a commitment to build. That, they say, is exactly what Atlantic City should want for itself: a real plan and the facts to make a determination.
