In less than two years, Mets owners Fred and Jeff Wilpon will unveil their version of baseball’s grandest ballpark on the site just behind the visitor’s bullpen in the left field parking lot at Shea Stadium. The new yard will include the latest in technological gadgetry and no shortage of ATM machines — the stadium will bear the name of a bank, after all. The ballpark will carry all of the now requisite revenue producers, from club seats and luxury boxes, to eateries and fan apparel stores. In short, the Wilpons are building a mall that happens to feature baseball. As Shea Stadium — a functional though not graceful slab of cement — is readied for demolition like its neighbor in the Bronx, Yankee Stadium, club owners are finding that there is more money in mall ball. For ticket holders flush with cash, but not necessarily a love for baseball, the attractions beyond the ballpark could prove to be the real draw and a windfall for the Mets’ ownership.

In their new homes, the Mets and Yankees owners will offer fewer seats, reducing capacity by about 12,000 and 7,000 seats a game, respectively.

Years ago, a professor at the University of Central Florida, Bill Sutton, coined the phrase the “Fenway Principle,” to describe how a ballpark or arena with reduced capacity can create a shortage of tickets, forcing customers to purchase tickets months in advance if they want to attend a game. The Fenway Principle will likely play out in Queens and the Bronx, where fans will not only vie for fewer seats, but will pay more for them.

The principal owner of the New Jersey Devils, Jeffrey Vanderbeek, will also apply the Fenway Principle to his team, offering 2,000 fewer seats at the new Prudential Center set to open this fall in Newark, N.J. But there is more. In moving from the Meadowlands to Newark, Vanderbeek follows the path that Abe Pollin, a former owner of the Washington Capitals paved in the mid-1990s. Pollin moved his Capitals from suburban Landover, Md., to the area near Chinatown and Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., abandoning many Caps fans of modest income in favor of ticket buyers with the wherewithal to spend in abundance at a sporting event. Vanderbeek, too, intends to lure well-heeled fans to a new Devils arena, leaving behind the loyal, tailgating Devils fans that have cheered the team through three Stanley Cup victories. The new and improved Devils supporters will hopefully boost the team with their wallets — after all, New Jersey ranked 26 of 30 in attendance this season.

It’s hard to imagine Yankees owner George Steinbrenner abandoning his clientele once the team moves up the street. The cost of attending a Yankees game is already prohibitive to many, though the organization does offer some special promotions that give fans a chance to see the Bronx Bombers at a discount. But that may not be the case at the new stadium. Similarly, tickets to Mets games don’t come cheap; in their new ventures, Steinbrenner and the Wilpons will more than likely cut out the baseball fan that saves up for a cheap seat a couple times a year.

Yet even as the Wilpons prepare for the opening of a grand ballpark and undoubtedly a surge in ticket prices, there is one thing that may not change. The Iron Triangle that currently lies outside the eastern perimeter of Shea Stadium’s parking lot is home to acres of junkyards built on a landfill, with no sewers or sidewalks. There is some irony in the possibility that the 44,000 well-off fans the Wilpon family intends to draw to the newly built stadium will have to pass the Iron Triangle before they get to it.

Still, a solution for what to do with this eyesore might be in the offing. Mayor Bloomberg has proposed a development plan to replace the 225 auto shops and 25 industrial and manufacturing businesses in the triangle with 5,500 housing units, 500,000 square feet of office space, and 1.7 million square feet of land for retail and entertainment centers. The redevelopment would also include a school, a 700-room hotel, and a convention center. When the city puts the project up for bid in 2008, the Wilpons, who have storied roots in real estate development, could put themselves in the running for the redevelopment rights. The Iron Triangle is also a toxic waste site that will likely need to be sanitized. When the city of Carson, Calif., was bidding for a NFL expansion team in 1999, it was estimated that it would cost at least $50 million to clean out the potential stadium site. There is no price tag at the moment for Bloomberg’s proposal. The city could buy or seize the land through eminent domain at “fair market prices,” potentially making it the second sports project in the city to use eminent domain laws to appropriate land for improvements near a sports facility. (The city might also rely on eminent domain to secure land needed for developer and Nets owner Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards-arena project in Brooklyn.)

In 1985, Donald Trump sought to take the 60 acres of land that comprises the Iron Triangle and build a condominium-stadium there for his New Jersey Generals football team. Business owners in the Iron Triangle had been against the Trump condominium-stadium plan, which was backed by Governor Cuomo. The following year, Trump’s proposal became part of an anti-trust lawsuit brought by the United States Football League against the NFL. Trump expressed hope that the suit would end in a settlement that would force the NFL to take in his Generals, who would play their games in Queens. The USFL won the lawsuit but was awarded $3 in damages and Trump abandoned his plan.

Bloomberg has had mixed results with stadium/arena development. He struck out with the proposed Manhattan Westside stadium and with that his chance at the 2012 Summer Olympics. But he has successfully negotiated deals with Steinbrenner and the Wilpons, and he continues to push for Ratner’s plan to develop the Atlantic Yards.

The only thing that remains certain about all of the stadium and arena development in the city is that wherever they build them, it’s going to cost much more to get in and there will be far more fans catching the games on the couch.

evanjweiner@yahoo.com