Newark

Newark council sets date for vote on arena funds

The Newark City Council plans to vote in two weeks to move ahead with construction of a downtown arena.

Richard Monteilh, Newark's business administrator, said Mayor Sharpe James expects to ask the council to approve a resolution on Sept. 15 that will commit the city to spend $210 million on an 18,000-seat arena for the Devils.

The council is expected to approve the resolution with at least six members favoring a project James has worked tirelessly to achieve for more than six years.

"We are moving ahead with this," Monteilh said.

The planned vote is one of a series of actions expected to take place during the next month, culminating with bulldozers moving onto the site at Broad, Market and Lafayette streets and Edison Place by early October, Monteilh said.

Among those actions:

• Expected approval today by the city council on the planning board's recommendation to declare the 24-acre site known as the "downtown core" in need of redevelopment. That vote will clear the way for the city to begin taking control of the land, much of which is already publicly owned.

• Completion within three weeks of the pre-development work at the site, including surveying and examination of the land.

• Selection of an architect to design the $310 million arena. The Devils, who want to move into the arena in 2007, will contribute $100 million to the project and pay for any cost overruns.

• Demolition of the infamous Renaissance Mall, the abandoned half-built structure near City Hall that for a decade has been a symbol of Newark's struggles with urban renewal.

A new headquarters for the city's board of education, a community center and practice ice rink, a 300-room hotel, and an entertainment and retail center will surround the arena.

While there is widespread support for redevelopment of the city's downtown, critics of the proposed arena said James was denying the public a chance to speak.

By using a resolution to approve spending on the arena, the city will be able to dispose of the matter in a single day. Monteilh said the city council will hold a public hearing on the resolution on the afternoon of the 15th and vote that night.

"These guys want this thing in the worst way," said Richard Cammarieri, a community activist in Newark.

If the project had been proposed in an ordinance, the city would have had to hold a series of public hearings and wait several weeks before the ordinance would take effect. That would have given opponents of the project a chance to be heard.

"We had hoped the administration would have wanted to follow what it has done in the past and hold hearings in every ward on an issue that is so important," said Joe Monteiro, an aide to council member Carlos Quintana, who is opposed to the city's investment in the arena.

Monteilh, however, said the city had impaneled a commission that spent nearly six months evaluating the project and held its own public hearing. He said the city has considered the matter long enough and needs to start building soon for the arena to be ready in three years.

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