A nasty border war is brewing between New York and New Jersey now that a big-shot senator wants to buy the New Jersey Nets to stop the basketball team from moving to Brooklyn.
The war is pitting Sen. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.), developer and Democratic donor Charles Kushner, Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey and former Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) – all of whom want the Nets in Jersey – against developer Bruce Ratner, who two weeks ago proposed bringing the team to downtown Brooklyn.
Corzine and Kushner are putting a bid together to buy the two-time Eastern Conference champs from YankeeNets, the partnership that owns the Yankees and the Nets, according to Post sources and published reports.
The duo is reported to have looked over the team’s financial records and may put a bid in as early as next week.
McGreevey also said yesterday he’s working to keep the team in Jersey.
“We are working cooperatively with the YankeeNets organization to provide two different opportunities, in Newark as well as the Meadowlands,” McGreevey said.
The New Jersey bid is seen as a serious blow to Ratner, a major New York City powerbroker, who has proposed building the Nets an arena in a development with 2.7 million feet of commercial space and a few thousand units of housing.
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who cried “tears of pain” as a 12-year old boy, when the Dodgers left the borough, yesterday told The Post he hopes the New Jersey bid fails.
And Ratner and the Corzine-led Jersey group aren’t the only ones vying for the Nets. New York Islanders owner Charles Wang also says he wants to build a new arena in Nassau County and move the team there.
Ratner’s proposed arena at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues would be part of a massive facelift planned for downtown Brooklyn.
Already, a shopping mall, park areas and a revamped Long Island Rail Road Station have been green-lighted, but future development at the site would be boosted by a Nets arena, said Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff.
But, “if the Nets were to stay in New Jersey, it wouldn’t affect our announced plans for downtown Brooklyn,” he insisted. “That was all going ahead regardless.”
Even if Ratner can beat out the competition and tear the team from the clutches of the moneybags New Jersey senator, he still needs permission from the Transit Authority to build his arena over an existing rail yard.