Last year, the NJSEA awarded the redevelopment rights to the 104-acre Continental Arena site within the Meadowland Sports Complex in East Rutherford, NJ to Mills and Mack-Cali following a competitive bidding process. The firms' $1.3-billion Meadowlands Xandau proposal will include a variety of recreational and entertainment uses, as well as major retail and office components, around the existing arena. The fate of the arena remains to be determined.
The Secaucus, NJ-based Hartz Mountain Industries, one of the finalists in the competition to get the project, promptly sued, challenging the selection process as flawed and unfair. Hartz has substantial holdings of its own in the Meadowlands region.
The Appellate Court's latest decision, however, concludes that the NJSEA's final selection was within the parameters of its original RFP and that the overall process was fair. According to the Court, the original RFP gave the NJSEA, a state agency, "an extraordinary amount of discretion" in terms of analyzing the subsequent proposals.
The Court did leave the door open for Hartz and any other losing bidders--a partnership of Westfield and Forest City Ratner was the third finalist. The three-judge panel, headed by Judge Sylvia Pressler, ordered the NJSEA to release more than 200 documents, relating to the selection process, that the agency has been withholding from public scrutiny.
The judges' decision also gives Hartz the right to request another hearing before the NJSEA based on information that can be gleaned from the soon-to-be-released documents. Hartz officials have indicated that they will be focusing on information relating to traffic studies and financial analysis of the Xanadu project.
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