Spring 2004 Edition

Former Mayor's Son Shaping the Meadowlands    Last year, the state announced that a huge entertainment, sports, office and shopping development would be built at the Meadowlands Sports Complex, right next to the Continental Arena.  The man behind the project, Mitchell Hersh is a 1968 graduate of Fair Lawn High School and son of the late architect and former Fair Lawn Mayor, Bernard Hersh.     Mitchell Hersh is now chief executive officer of Mack-Cali Realty Corporation.   After graduating Fair Lawn High School, Mitchell Hersh also went on to become an an architect.  Hersh is proud of his father's many contributions to Fair Lawn and the tree grove planted in his memory at Memorial Park.  He says "My father brought his expertise as an architect to the Council.  He was also active in the Fair Lawn Opportunity Center as well as many civic and community activities.  He designed wings of Fair Lawn High School, Thomas Jefferson Middle School, Fair Lawn Mental Health Center, Temple Beth Sholom and a number of office buildings and residences.”     The Meadowlands development, Xanadu, is a huge family entertainment, office and hotel complex, that includes: -          City built to children’s scale -          Cooking school -          Extreme sports park for skate boarding, in-line skating and BMX biking -          Hotel -          Ice-skating rink -          Indoor ski resort (photo of an indoor ski run, above) -          Indoor wave pool (with surfing) -          Live theater -          Luxury spa -          Mini-Formula One racing  track -          Minor league baseball park and home for a professional lacrosse team -          Movie theaters How big will Xanadu be?   4.76 million square feet.  That's about the size of 4,000 typical Fair Lawn homes put together.  It’s more than the size of the Garden State Plaza plus the Empire State Building, combined.  Xanadu will have as much retail space, alone, as Paramus Park.  Xanadu supporters have been promoting the development as an economic boom for the area; they say it will be environmental friendly with many children friendly features.  But, there have been concerns in both Bergen and Hudson counties that the new development will compete with existing businesses, especially in Secaucus and Paramus.  There have also been traffic concerns. Although new rail lines have been proposed to serve the Meadowlands stadiums and Xanadu, there is no funding in place to build them.  Xanadu is not a done deal yet.  Hersh’s firm is now pursuing approvals from various governmental agencies including the NJ Department of Environmental Protection and the NJ Department of Transportation.  Lawsuits have also been filed to stop the development.   One person in state government watching the proposal closely, used to sit next to Hersh in his Fair Lawn High School math class.  Fair Lawn's Assemblyman Bob Gordon says "I'm keeping a close eye on the proposal.  It has great potential, but I want to make sure that we have the infrastructure needed to support it." Last year, Hersh made over $2 million as chief executive of his realty corporation.  Assemblyman Gordon,  makes about $49,000 per year.  Gordon told Fair Lawn News "obviously, he must have gotten a lot more out of math class than I did."