Meadowlands Arena has had surprising uses since it closed 10 years ago including to film Walking Dead but it may soon be gone for good

More than a decade after the Meadowlands Arena closed its doors to the public, the once-famous sports and concert venue sits nearly abandoned along the banks of the Hackensack River — even as new developments have sprung up all around.First, it was MetLife Stadium, which replaced the aging Giants Stadium next door in 2010.Then it was American Dream, the neighboring megamall that opened in 2019.But the arena — known in its glory days as the Brendan Byrne or Continental, as well as the IZOD Center — has remained frozen in time since the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority voted to shutter it in 2015.That might finally be about to change.Local business leaders — including the Meadowlands Chamber of Commerce — want to tear down the 20,000-seat venue and build a massive convention center with exhibition, meeting and banquet spaces.It would be a boon for the Meadowlands, said chamber president and CEO Jim Kirkos — the new $1.6 billion center could be booked up for most of the year and could generate as much as $30 billion over three decades, according to an economic impact study commissioned by a chamber affiliate.Those numbers get Kirkos excited.“If we built the facility like we envisioned, it’s too much of an economic impact to walk away from,” he told The Post in a phone interview this week.

“Because right now we have a donut hole, right? The arena is not producing anything.” Originally built to host the New Jersey Devils and the New Jersey Nets, the arena opened July 2, 1981, in the most Jersey way possible: with a series of Bruce Springsteen shows.“That was the best show ever,” the Boss said in his dressing room after the first performance, according to Rolling Stone.“We couldn’t hear each other onstage.

I felt like the Beatles.”The arena witnessed a string of glorious moments from there, including three Stanley Cup championships and numerous concerts that shook the foundation of the area, which sits on swampy grounds.“It wa...