It's a Giant leap: team inks $750m stadium deal.

The Jets aren't the only ones who look like they'll get a new stadium. Last Thursday the New York Giants and the state of New Jersey agreed on a deal for a new $750 million stadium to be funded exclusively by the Giant's and built adjacent to their current facility in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

The deal comes after months of legal wrangling, stalled negotiations and seesawing relations between the Giants and the state who, up until only a few weeks ago, were seemingly entrenched in a feud. But last Wednesday, New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority President George Zoffinger parted with his longstanding oppositional stance to the new stadium plans in a gesture that paved the way for acting Governor Richard J. Codey to successfully resume negotiations and strike a deal.

Zoffinger indicated that his change of position was prompted more by mounting pressure against him rather than his belief that the project will be a profitable one for New Jersey. "I didn't see the light, but I felt the heat," Zoffinger said.

Zoffinger originally wanted to hold off negotiations with the Giants until July when the Olympic Committee is scheduled to announce whether or not New York City will host the 2012 summer Olympic games. If New York isn't picked, he believed that support for the new Jets stadium would collapse and that the team would stay in the Meadowlands, a situation that Zoffinger--who amassed a personal fortune developing real estate--said would have given him an opportunity to negotiate a better deal for the state.

Governor Codey rejected Zoffinger's approach and has stated that he believes the Jets stadium will be built regardless of the Olympic committee's selection in July. Under the terms of the current deal, the Giants will pay $6.6 million dollars a year to lease 78-acres of land adjacent to its current 28-acre site, a figure that Zoffinger said was woefully below value.

"They wouldn't have paid even that, had I not resisted," Zoffinger said.

Although currently the state is said to be taking a loss from operating the stadium just for Giants games, it reaps net profits by hosting a steady stream of concerts and events, a source of income it would lose with a new stadium wholly owned by the Giants. The Giants claim that any loss in revenue would be more than supplanted by taxes reaped from the increased sale of merchandise, which will be facilitated by better retail spaces in the new stadium. Sports Authority spokesman Jim DeBosh said that most of the business such retail shops do is for tax-exempt clothing and apparel.

Another tax on luxury boxes that the state wants to impose on the new stadium became a deal breaker during the original negotiations in mid February.

"The Governor can't tie the hands of his successors by striking a deal that won't let them tap revenue streams," Zoffinger said.

After those initial negotiations for the project crumbled in mid February over the luxury tax and also parking issues, the Giants filed suit against the Sports Authority, claiming that it is not living up to its contractual obligations to provide the team with a state of the art stadium. The suit indicates that Giants stadium is obsolete as compared to other NFL stadiums and seeks $300 million dollars in renovations, including improvements to the practice and locker room facilities, better fan amenities, and an overhaul of the stadium's retail spaces. The state countered by asking a court to define "state of the art," as it pertains to stadiums.

The Giants also have launched a suit against neighboring Xanadu, a 51.3 billion sports themed mall and entertainment center currently being erected in the direct vicinity of the Continental Airlines Arena, seeking an injunction on construction for the project, which began just last month. The Giants have claimed that Xanadu has consumed some of its 24K parking spaces in violation of the team's leasing agreement and that the mall's traffic flow will create havoc on game days.

Mitchell Hersh, CEO of Mack-Cali--who along with the Mills Corporation is developing the project--indicated that parking concerns had been mitigated and that Xanadu had agreed to open only partially on game days. He condemned the litigation against the development as being a fulcrum by which the Giants are trying to exert pressure on the state to meet its concessions.

"There were times when we had left meetings with the Giants thinking that we had a deal all worked out just to learn later in the press that that in fact wasn't the case," Hersh said.

Now that the Giants have reached a deal, Hersh expects all the lawsuits to be dropped.