Meadowlands Xanadu

[atlrvr]

I was driving up the NJTP late last night, and a huge monstrosity of a building was going up about where I thought the Meadowland was....at first I thought it was the new Giants stadium, but it was way too large for that, so after a small amount of research, I learned of Meadowlands Xanadu, which will be 4.8 MILLION square feet of retail and entertainment space including an indoor ski hill. I had never heard of this project before, but from the looks of it, its quite far along, with the exterior panels currently being applied.

Overall Complex Renderings

Anyway.....I find it somewhat appalling that this is going up on the edge of a city known for its great urban form, but I have no doubt it will be a huge tourist trap....

[Lowerdeck]

The Meadowlands doesn't currently have train service, correct? If so, looks good to see a train station coming in.

[lammius]

Tourist trap is right. I'll still go check it out, though, but I'll save my skiing for real mountains. Seeing the indoor ski hill in Dubai, it looked kinda silly and not very fun.

As for the rail link, yeah a spur from Lautenberg Station in Secaucus will go in to serve the Meadowlands Sports Complex. There will probably be some sort of circulator/jitney to take people from the Sports Complex over to Xanadu. The rail link will be great because while it's on the NJ TRANSIT system, LIRR trains will cross Manhattan and bring people from the Island to the Meadowlands during sports events. Also, NJ TRANSIT has several proposals for extending the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, one of which calls for a run out to Xanadu and the Sports Complex.

[Lowerdeck]

Apparently there's some plan or idea to run Metro North trains on the New Haven line to cross over into New Jersey for Meadowlands service. That would be wonderful too.