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October 25, 2009
The Nets are coming to Newark! The Nets are coming to Newark! Maybe
The Star-Ledger
By Joan Whitlow
This article looks forward to a deal that has the New Jersey Nets coming to Newark, and especially how the deal will allow the city of Newark to recover rent owed by the New Jersey Devils.
We’ve all heard the Nets-are-coming-to-Newark rumors before. This time, there’s a really good chance that starting next season the basketball team could leave the Izod Center in the Meadowlands and play their home games in Newark.
The Nets could be here for at least two years, or longer if the team’s plan for a Brooklyn arena go from stalled, as it is right now, to definitely dead. It’s all good news, not just for Newark, but for a state that needs to keep the team on this side of the Hudson for as long as possible.
There’s more. In a now widely circulated memo from the Governor’s Office of Economic Growth, there’s a proposal to keep the Prudential Center and the Izod from beating up each other when they compete for acts. A new entity would serve as the booking agent for both. That means the Izod would stay open when the Nets leave for Newark. It sounds like a savvy economic and political solution, at least until the inevitable happens and the cost of keeping the aging Izod going will be too much of a public subsidy to bear.
The very, very good news in this deal is that Newark is supposed to get a wad of cash to cover the back rent owed by the New Jersey Devils. The hockey team is Newark’s partner in the Rock, and its presence in town has been good for the city. But the team is landlord as well as tenant in the city-owned center. The Devils control all the money and the team hasn’t paid rent in the two years the arena has been open.
Posted by steve at October 25, 2009 8:32 AM