The Borg siblings to Hackensack: Drop dead!

The Record's eyesore property in Hackensack, above and below, stands in stark contrast to the flattering photo that appears on Page 1 of the Woodland Park daily today.

A developer likely will pay more than $20 million for North Jersey Media Group's 19.7 acres along River Street. The terms of the deal weren't disclosed in The Record's story.

No dumpsters in this view, similar to the A-1 photo.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

If developer Fred Daibes follows through on plans to raze The Record's old headquarters and build apartment buildings, Hackensack's public schools won't be able to accommodate the children who live there (A-1).

The residential development would be the third to be built in the city in three or four years, and the schools are already bursting at the seams.

Avalon, a Hackensack Avenue complex, is now renting, and another developer just broke ground on a 222-unit State Street building.

The Borg family's North Jersey Media Group gave Hackensack a good screwing in 2009, when it abandoned the city where The Record had prospered for 110 years.

Now, the Borgs are telling city and school officials to drop dead.

Better uses for land

The wealthy publishing family could have offered the 19.7 acres to another developer, Richard Pineles, defusing a huge legal battle over a 19-story acute-care hospital  proposed for a small Prospect Avenue parcel.

Or, they could have sold the land to a retailer, such as Costco Wholesale, which is rumored to be leaving Hackensack to build a larger store in Teterboro.

Questionable deal

Instead, they are selling to Daibes, a restaurant owner and bank founder who has allegedly violated numerous state and federal regulations, and who has been treated gently by The Record. 

Publisher Stephen A. Borg claims in today's story,  "There always has been, continues to be, and always will be a separation between the business side and editorial" (A-7).

But that doesn't go for friends, lawyers and others who do business with the Borgs, judging from all the promotional stories about them in recent years.

Just the other day, Jon F. Hanson was identified as Governor Christie's chief adviser on the retail-entertainment monstrosity known as American Dreams Meadowlands (Sunday, A-7).

Hanson also is a real estate mogul who co-owns a private jet with his best friend, Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg.

Apartment plan

Daibes will need all the public relations skills of his politically connected spokesman, Alan Marcus, to market what today's story describes as "upscale high-rise apartment buildings along the Hackensack River."

The Record's old 4th-floor newsroom afforded a sweeping view of the Manhattan skyline in the distance -- as long as you overlooked a hulking industrial building and oil tanks in the foreground, and the elevated New Jersey Turnpike in mid-distance.

No pollution?

Also in today's story, Jennifer A. Borg, NJMG's vice president/general counsel, pledges there are "no environmental issues that will prevent redevelopment."

Christie budget

The $33 billion state budget approved by the Legislature doesn't include expanded preschool acess, women's health care or a tax credit for the working poor (A-6).