Empire Tract: Largest Single Block Of Private, Undeveloped Wetlands In The Meadowlands On Brink of Preservation

 

By Hugh M. Carola

 

Those of you who have followed this incredible story since the mid-1990s are well aware of its many ups and downs and twists and turns. It appears, my friends, that the story of the Empire Tract is finally coming to a conclusion.

Early on the morning of October 5, 2004, Captain Bill Sheehan, in his role as chairman of the Meadowlands Conservation Trust, convened the trustees in special session to discuss the transfer of the Tract from the Mills Corporation to the Trust.  Later that morning, Capt. Bill brought the result of that meeting - a unanimous resolution supporting the transfer - to the offices of the NJ Sports and Exposition Authority (NJSEA). The resolution was received with thunderous applause.

At press time, the final transfer is not yet complete but it will be executed when one of the following things happens: when Mills receives its final Army Corps of Engineers permit for the Continental Arena site or when Mills completes its financial transaction with NJSEA. At that point, and barring any eleventh-hour legal obstructions, the largest single block of privately owned wetlands in the New Jersey Meadowlands will be transferred to the Trust and preserved forever.

The story of the Empire Tract as we know it today began on July 18, 1949 when the Borough of Carlstadt offered 1,012 acres of “Meadowland” for sale at public auction. That original acreage included the 587 acres we know today as the Empire Tract.  At that time, the advertised minimum bid was $20,861.97, or roughly $21 per acre.

By the early 1960s, Empire Development Corporation held title to most of the Empire Tract. Between 1966 and 1968, the corporation was granted tidelands rights to adjacent wetlands in South Hackensack by the State of New Jersey, effectively expanding the Empire Tract to include wetlands in that municipality as well as in Moonachie.

In 1972, the first official zoning map of the Hackensack Meadowlands District, created by the then-Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission (HMDC), zoned the Empire Tract for “island residential” and “light industrial/distribution.” Had that original zoning plan been played out, warehouses and other development would have stretched eastward from County Route 503 to the banks of the Hackensack River.

Nearly 25 years later, however, more than half of the Tract’s original acreage remained undeveloped while 425 acres were filled during the land rush that swept over the Meadowlands District from the 1960s through the 1990s.

By 1996, the HMDC’s proposed Special Area Management Plan (SAMP) called for the remaining wetlands of the Empire Tract to be converted into a mixture of residential, commercial and light industrial /warehouse development, echoing the 1972 zoning. That same year, the Virginia-based Mills Corporation unveiled a proposal called “Meadowlands Town Center.” Had it been built, that proposal (also known as the “Mini-City”) would have filled 300 acres of wetlands and included office buildings, hotels, a shopping center and 5,800 units of housing.

One year later, after vociferous opposition to the residential component of their proposal, Mills came up with a new suggestion for the Empire Tract--Meadowlands Mills, a 2.1 million square foot retail megamall that promised to be New Jersey’s biggest retail mecca.

By the mid-1990s however, opinions about wetlands in general and the Meadowlands in particular had changed drastically from what they were in the early 1970s. By the time Mills made their mall proposal, a host of environmental groups (including a fledgling organization called Hackensack Riverkeeper) was advocating for the protection of the remaining 8,400 acres of habitat in the Meadowlands. The idea of filling in wetlands for a mall had become unthinkable for many.

It didn’t take long for the fight against Meadowlands Mills to become synonymous with the fight to save the Meadowlands itself. For example, the Hackensack Meadowlands Preservation Alliance (HMPA), a coalition of 120 organizations that was co-founded by Capt. Bill Sheehan in 1998, didn’t just fight against the Mills proposal, it advocated for the creation of an urban wildlife refuge out of the entire Meadowlands.

The lively and often rancorous debate between those opposed to and those in favor of Meadowlands Mills came to a head in 2001 during the transitional administration of Acting Governor Donald DiFrancesco. It was under his watch that the state of New Jersey officially came down on the side of preserving the Empire Tract. At a historic press conference at the HMDC, DiFrancesco called upon Mills to “sit down with my administration” and work together with the state to find an appropriate site “where they can become part of our community.” The tide had finally turned.

Governor Jim McGreevey continued the trend of his predecessor by directing the NJ Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) and the newly renamed NJ Meadowlands Commission (NJMC) to refrain from issuing any permits to develop the Empire Tract. At the same time, another state agency, the NJ Sports and Exhibition Authority (NJSEA) provided an “appropriate site” alluded to by DiFrancesco: the opportunity to redevelop the lands surrounding the Continental Airlines Arena. And you already know the rest of the story…

…Which brings us to where we are today. New Jersey is 587 acres closer to the creation of the Meadowlands Estuary Preserve.