Sometime soon, New Jersey Governor Corzine, will be deciding whether or not to keep the Meadowlands Arena open. Here’s some free advice for the Governor: Make demolition plans.

He’ll need them because as soon as the 18,000-seat Newark arena opens next fall, the 25-year-old structure Meadowlands facility will be entirely obsolete by today’s sports and arena standards and will also have lost one of its main tenants — the Devils — to the new arena. (The Meadowlands building also will probably lose college basketball and NCAA opening-round tournaments to the Newark venue.)

When an arena loses an anchor tenant it signals the beginning of the end of its usefulness as a sports venue. Jeffrey Vanderbeek’s Devils franchise is gone and Bruce Ratner’s Nets are contractually committed to the building only until his planned Brooklyn Arena sees the light of day. Of course, Ratner’s arena may never be built, which means that — under the right circumstances — the Nets could end up in Newark or possibly somewhere in Queens. But Ratner is not likely to stay beyond 2010 or 2011 at an old arena that underperforms in terms of revenue because of a lack of luxury boxes, club seats, and other fan-friendly amenities.

All Corzine needs to do to make the “right” decision is to see what is happening in Miami, where the 18-year-old Miami Arena sits empty and may face the wrecking ball sooner than later. Corzine should also check out what happened to the Charlotte Coliseum, which opened in 1988 and will be demolished next spring. Or the governor can ask Dallas officials what they plan to do with an empty Reunion Arena that opened in 1980, a year before New Jersey’s Brendan Byrne Arena (later rechristened the Continental Airlines Arena) opened with a string of Bruce Springsteen concerts.

At one time, the Miami Arena was home to the NBA’s Heat, the NHL’s Panthers, as well as college basketball, concerts, wrestling, ice shows, and tractor pulls, among other events that typically end up in 15,000-seat buildings. The same was true in Charlotte — although that building did not house an NHL franchise — and it’s the same story in Dallas. Those buildings in Dallas, Miami, and Charlotte did not have an abundance of luxury boxes, club seats, and wide concourses lined with themed restaurants and expansive concession areas for customers looking to spend their money on food and T-shirts with team logos. But this is where the money is made in new arenas — and the Continental Airlines Arena doesn’t offer those amenities.

The Miami Arena lost its business to not one, but three arenas in the area. Seven years ago, the Miami Heat relocated to a nearby structure, and the Panthers’ owner, Wayne Huizenga, moved up to Sunrise. And in 2003, the University of Miami abandoned the arena for an on-campus building. The arena’s concert business also tapered off when the new Miami and Sunrise arenas scooped up a lot of the action.

The Miami Arena did try to fill in dates by renting out the building to an East Coast Hockey League team, which did not last a year, and myriad entities, including an indoor football league franchise and concert promoters. Nothing worked. The city, which had invested $52.5 million to build the structure in the mid-1980s, auctioned off the property in 2004 and made a paltry $28 million.

The building still stands, but as a white elephant and developers continue to fight over what to do with the land. In Charlotte, the arena will be replaced by mixed development.

The Meadowlands arena faces the same fate regardless of what the president and CEO of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, George Zoffinger, says or believes.

Zoffinger is convinced the building can be profitable in spite of the absence of Vanderbeek’s Devils franchise following this year’s playoffs and despite Ratner’s eventual departure. Zoffinger is probably right when he argues the old building can be competitive with Newark when it comes to concerts — the cost of putting on a concert in the Meadowlands will probably be cheaper than at the Newark arena. But Zoffinger is wrong when he says he will be vying for events solely with Newark, which will sit 12 miles from his building.

Zoffinger will be competing not only with Newark, but also with Madison Square Garden, which is about six miles east of his building. The Garden is still the spot for big-name concerts, despite its age and structure problems, and the considerable expense incurred to stage a concert there (because the arena is five floors above ground, moving gear into the building is costly). In the secondary market, the Meadowlands has competition from the Nassau Coliseum (which is scheduled to be renovated), Bridgeport Arena, the Trenton Arena, three venues in Pennsylvania (two in Philadelphia and another in Wilkes-Bare/Scranton).

The question of naming rights also is looming. Should Zoffinger somehow convince Governor Corzine to keep the Meadowlands Arena open in order to save some 1,500 jobs, many of them part time and per diem employees? What kinds of events would be held in the building and could naming rights be sold for a place without an NBA or NHL franchise that calls it home? The answer to the naming rights issue seems clear: If there are no major league teams there and the arena becomes the site of tractor pulls and revivals — the answer is no.

The answer to what kind of events would replace a season of Devils and Nets games is less clear. The NBA will not put one of its Development League teams in the building and its highly unlikely the NHL’s primary feeder league, the American Hockey League, would move into a building that seats 19,040, where it would compete with three NHL teams. The building also is far too big for an ECHL or a United Hockey League team; and neither the Continental Basketball Association nor the American Basketball Association is a viable option. The same is true of Indoor soccer and indoor football, which have failed to make any inroads in the New Jersey region of the metropolitan area. Maybe the National Lacrosse League could fill up a dozen or so dates.

But Zoffinger might have one option he can present to Corzine.

After new arenas were built in Houston and Los Angeles, Houston’s Summit coliseum and Inglewood’s Forum became churches. In 2004, after the NBA’s Rockets left for a new home, Houston leased the building to the Lakewood Church. In California, the Faithful Central Bible Church moved into the Forum in 2001 after the NBA Lakers and the NHL Kings moved downtown into a new arena. The Forum is still occasionally used for concerts; Madonna and the Rolling Stones have both performed there since the Lakers and Kings left the building.

Corzine’s best option would be to knock down the Meadowlands building and incorporate the space into Xanadu, the $1.3 billion retail and entertainment center being built at the Meadowlands and slated to be integrated into the Giants-Jets stadium development project. Mixed land use might produce more than 1,500 jobs and it could conceivably bring more money into the complex. If it stays open without the Devils and Nets, the Meadowlands Arena could become New Jersey’s equivalent of the Miami Arena.

A hulking, white elephant.