Reebok founder hopes to build 95-story casino tower

The proposal includes a 95-story tower with a Las Vegas-style casino, a hotel, and apartments, as well as shopping, an entertainment complex, and a 107,500-seat stadium for motor sports, as well as the world's largest Ferris wheel.

The proposal faces one major obstacle (in addition to the thousands of minor obstacles that you can probably imagine) which is that building a casino anywhere outside Atlantic City would require New Jerseyans to vote to amend the state constitution. Despite that, Jersey politicians seem highly optimistic. "It will blow away Macau as a destination place for gaming," Senator Raymond Lesniak told the Star Ledger. The whole project, called Liberty Rising, would cost around USD 4.6 billion.

Known as Liberty Rising, the tower would include a casino, a hotel and apartments, along with expensive shops and an entertainment complex. There are also plans for what would be the world’s largest Ferris wheel and a 107,500-seat stadium for motor sports. The proposed complex was first reported on Wednesday by The Star-Ledger of Newark.

The tower would presumably be as tall or taller than 1 World Trade Center, now the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere. It would loom over the Statue of Liberty and offer panoramic views of the harbor, Lower Manhattan and New Jersey. “You’ve got to think big,” said Mayor Steven Fulop of Jersey City, adding that he had been discussing the project with Mr. Fireman for eight months. “The opportunity to have a world-class facility on the waterfront is significant from a job-creation standpoint, for tax relief and for tourism. Paul Fireman is capable of executing something like this.”

Fireman spent USD 250 million cleaning up the Jersey City dump site and building the Liberty National Golf Course while still running Reebok. The course opened in 2006. It had an initiation fee of USD 500,000 and attracted players that included Wall Street titans, who could reach the course by ferry from Lower Manhattan, and Giants quarterback Eli Manning.

“Not to criticize Jersey City, but it’s tough to create a luxury residential product outside of a hub like Manhattan,” said Jonathan J. Miller, president of Miller Samuel, an appraisal firm in Manhattan. “The trophy market isn’t simply about building something big and sticking it somewhere. “I don’t understand this location, even if the views are spectacular. It’s aligned with things that don’t go together with high-end apartments, like motor cross.”

Fulop is not so sure about motor cross either, because of the potential increased traffic through Liberty State Park.But with a 95-story tower, a megacasino and a proposed stadium that seats nearly 25,000 more people than MetLife Stadium, the project is drowning in superlatives. Mr. Fulop said the USD 4.6 billion complex would be “one of the biggest construction projects in the U.S.”

Well, it would be about as big as the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn, but a fraction of the size of the $20 billion Hudson Yards project underway on the Far West Side of Manhattan.

“We’re talking about a transformational project,” said Bill Pascrell III, a lobbyist for Mr. Fireman’s project. “It will accentuate the true value of the gold coast and take advantage of a tremendous city, and maybe give something for New Yorkers to look at, instead of us looking at the magical city of New York.”