Giants would
welcome Jets

See room for both in new home

BY RALPH VACCHIANO
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

The Giants signed a deal with the state of New Jersey yesterday that they hope means they'll be playing in a new Meadowlands stadium in the 2009 season.

And they wouldn't mind at all if they were sharing that stadium with the Jets.

In fact, during the final stages of the negotiations on the privately financed, $750 million project, both acting New Jersey Gov. Richard Codey and Giants VP John Mara spoke with Jets owner Woody Johnson about staying in the state. And the Giants' new 40-year deal (with an option for 58 additional years) has provisions for the Jets to sign on as "full partners," according to New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority Chairman Carl Goldberg, if their controversial West Side stadium project falls through.

"I don't envision that happening in the near future," Mara said. "They fully intend on going to New York and I expect that's going to happen. We're going to proceed as if they're not coming. If they decide they're going to come someday, we'll deal with that when it comes."

There is certainly plenty of time for that, considering construction on the new Giants' stadium is still about a year and several obstacles away. The document signed yesterday was a "memorandum of understanding" that will be presented to the NJSEA Board of Commissioners on Tuesday. The Giants still need to line up their financing, pick an actual cite for the 75-acre project and resolve their lawsuit with the builders of the Xanadu retail and entertainment complex regarding whether it will be open on game days (a hearing is scheduled for May 6).

If all goes well, the Giants will get an 80,000-seat stadium with about 200 suites, 8,000-10,000 club seats, wider concourses, restaurants, a Giants Hall of Fame, a team store and a new training facility that would be large enough for them to hold training camp there. The Giants would pay all construction costs and $6.3 million in annual rent. The state would be responsible for $20 million in infrastructure improvements and $124 million in debt on the soon-to-be-imploded Giants Stadium.

Mara said he hoped to be able to finance the deal without forcing season ticket holders to pay thousands for personal seat licenses, but he refused to rule that out.

The financing would be helped, of course, if the Jets eventually joined the project. Mara said if they did, the two sides would negotiate how to divide the revenue, including the lucrative naming rights to the stadium. Codey joked that he told Johnson that his other company, Johnson & Johnson, should consider purchasing those rights.

"The Giants would be more than happy to have them sharing the stadium with (the Jets)," Codey said. "I hope that could happen."