American Dream on track to open next spring, developer says

Show Caption Hide Caption American Dream tour Lincoln Palsgrove IV, Vice President of Communications at American Dream & Triple Five, gives a tour at at the construction site of the American Dream project in East Rutherford on 08/28/18.

The first phase of the American Dream entertainment and shopping extravaganza in the Meadowlands is on track to open next spring, with construction jobs on the site set to double in coming months, the developer pledged Tuesday.

Triple Five, the company behind the project, opened the site to politicians, including Gov. Phil Murphy, business leaders and the press to show that American Dream is becoming a reality.

“It’s going to be even bigger and better” than the Mall of America, Murphy said, referring to Triple Five’s Minnesota mall.

Murphy said he, his wife and a son visited Mall of America in July and got a tour that convinced him that Triple Five would be able to deliver a world-class experience in the Meadowlands.

Work continued on the project throughout the event, proving Triple Five’s dedication to staying on track. Speeches from Murphy and other dignitaries were routinely interrupted by the sounds of hydraulics and power tools.

This wasn't the first time a New Jersey governor and labor leaders have used the American Dream site as a backdrop to talk about construction jobs and economic growth.

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In April 2014, Gov. Christie led hundreds of construction workers in cheers as he announced a fall 2016 opening date for the project. That date came and went. Christie was back at the site again last August, as the developer said it was adding hundreds of workers and speeding up construction after a successful bond sale that provided funding.

But there was a key difference at Tuesday's event. Murphy and the American Dream developers made their pledges in front of convincing evidence of progress: a construction site that has changed dramatically in the past few months.

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Bergen County Building Trades President Rick Sabato defended the oft-derided development for its latency. “There have been a lot of naysayers,” he told the crowd. “Now we’re proving the naysayers wrong.”

Shifting to discussion of the project’s second phase, Sabato rallied the crowd of labor workers in cheers as he called for a “grand hotel” with 1,000 rooms and a convention center.

Turning to Murphy, he said, “And Governor, I’ll take a casino, too,” as construction workers, contractors and plumbers cheered from the future shopping mall’s mezzanine.

Politicians and local officials who have watched the project's starts and stops for more than a decade said Tuesday that Triple Five has turned them from doubters to believers.

"It's amazing how far along they've come in just a few months," said East Rutherford Mayor James Cassella. "We're pleased to start to see the light at the end of the tunnel," he said.

The project currently has about 1,600 construction workers at the site daily, and that number is set to almost double, to 3,000, this fall, when work will begin on the build-outs for some 450 retail and restaurant spaces.

When the project is fully open, it will support 16,200 jobs at the center and 7,000 jobs in surrounding towns, according to Triple Five. Those jobs will generate $1.2 billion in wages.

Not only has American Dream created construction jobs at the Meadowlands site, but, Sabato said, it "spurred millions of dollars of work" at the other North Jersey malls, as they have remodeled in anticipation of new competition.

The American Dream project, first proposed in 2002 as Xanadu, a mega-mall envisioned by the original developer, Mills Corp., had languished alongside the turnpike for nearly 15 years. Over the past year, however, the ambitious plans of Triple Five, the current developer and the third company to oversee the mammoth project, are finally taking shape.

The frame of the glass-enclosed Dreamworks Water Park — billed as North America's largest indoor water park — is nearly completed. The twisting metal tracks of the two record-breaking roller coasters in the Nickelodeon Universe theme park can be seen rising over the construction site.

Work at the 3 million-square-foot entertainment and shopping complex was largely stalled between 2006, when the original owner backed out, and 2017, when Triple Five closed on a $2.8 billion construction financing package. The funding package included a $390 million tax break for Triple Five, which the state claims will generate nine times that in revenue over the first 20 years it is open.

In addition to the indoor water park and amusement park, the project will have an indoor ski and snow park, a performing arts theater, an aquarium, a hockey rink, and more than a dozen full-service restaurants. Triple Five last week announced that the project will include a food hall operated by the Munchies digital food channel and website, with demonstrations and events by celebrity chefs.

It will also have a Cinemex luxury movie theater, a Kidzania children's play space and a Legoland Discovery Center.

The first part of the project is scheduled to open in the spring, but the water park may not be ready until the fall, "although we're very aggressively trying to close that gap," said Lincoln Palsgrove IV, vice president of communications for Triple Five.

The developers own the largest mall and entertainment complexes in North America: the Mall of America in Minnesota and the West Edmonton Mall in Alberta. They also are building an American Dream project in Miami.

The project has evolved from when it was first approved in 2003 to become less of a mall and more of an entertainment complex. Triple Five now says the project, when completed, will be 55 percent entertainment and 45 percent retail. So far Triple Five has only announced about 15 retail tenants, but it says many more are lined up and finalizing leases. The named retail tenants are Saks, Saks Off Fifth, Aritza, Banana Republic, Century 21, Gap, Hermes, Lululemon, MAC, Microsoft, Pink, Uniqlo, Victoria's Secret and Zara.

State Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi, one of the invited guests at the event Tuesday, praised Triple Five for being able to keep up with shifting retail trends and steer toward more entertainment venues and away from traditional retail. "It speaks volumes to how successful they will be," she said. And, Schepisi said, "as a mom of a 7-year-old boy who is pretty excited about being able to go to Legoland and the water park and the amusement park, I am hoping it does open sooner than later."