HOBOKEN, N.J. - Officials from the New Jersey Devils and this city unveiled a plan Friday to build a $175 million, privately financed hockey arena above Hoboken's existing rail and ferry terminal, directly across the Hudson River from downtown Manhattan.
The 20,000-seat arena detailed at a city hall press conference would allow the National Hockey League team to move out of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority's 25-year-old Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford. Devils' owner John McMullen said that facility does not generate enough revenue to keep his team competitive.
In addition to the arena, the plan calls for a larger complex that would include retail shopping and a 20-screen multiplex movie theater, team and city officials said.
Financing for the arena itself would be "100% private," said McMullen, adding that the Devils are negotiating with Chase Manhattan Bank for a line of credit. Hoboken Mayor Anthony Russo said it's too soon to say if, or how much, the city would need to kick in for infrastructure improvements, or whether those improvements would be bond financed.
"We're not at that stage yet," Russo said, adding that the city might be able to find some funds through the federal Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act. "There's no real estimate."
Plans for the arena are tentative and would require the approval of Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, the sports authority, and New Jersey Transit Corp., which operates the 100-year-old Hoboken Terminal, McMullen said.
The Devils' lease with the sports authority for the East Rutherford facility, located in the suburban Meadowlands, runs through 2007. McMullen said the team does not intend to break that lease, but hopes the authority will let the team out of the lease early.
In a prepared statement, however, Sports and Exposition Authority chairman Raymond Bateman foresaw no change in the Devils' status.
"The simple reality is that the New Jersey Devils will be playing a minimum of 35 home games at Continental Airlines Arena ... through the 2006-2007 season in accordance with the binding lease agreement signed in 1995," Bateman said. "The Sports and Exposition Authority will honor that contract and there are no foreseeable circumstances under which that would change."
The team and authority agreed to the 1995 lease after the Devils - in the midst of a successful run for the Stanley Cup championship - threatened to leave for Nashville unless improvements to the then-Brendan Byrne Arena were made. The authority responded with a package of improvements and financial incentives funded in part by the sale of arena naming rights to Continental Airlines.
Although the seating capacity of the proposed arena is only slightly larger than the 19,040-seat facility the Devils share with basketball's New Jersey Nets, the proposed building would have 170 of the revenue-generating luxury boxes team owners crave. The team's current arena has about 27 boxes, McMullen estimated.
"There are only two arenas in the United States that are as antiquated as our present arena," McMullen said at the press conference. "We feel that we're helping both the sports authority and the state in addressing this problem at an early stage."
But some press reports have speculated that the announcement is a move by McMullen to wrest further concessions from the authority. The Nets have also expressed dissatisfaction with their lease.
Devils officials said the Hoboken site is ideal because of Hoboken's status as a mass transit hub. The one-mile-square city sits across the Hudson River from New York City and is a major departure point for Manhattan-bound commuters.
Critics said access by highway will be difficult because the city has chronic traffic problems, but officials argue that a planned 4,000-car garage will help alleviate that congestion.
