EAST RUTHERFORD — The indoor ski slope remains empty and devoid of snow.

The skydiving wind tunnels are still a bunch of holes in the floor.

And the huge Ferris wheel has yet to be built.

But the developers of the long-stalled American Dream now are staking claim to another attraction they say is in the works — one they hope will inspire words like “gnarly,” “rad,” and “sa-weet.”

They want to bring surfing to the swamps of the Meadowlands.

Triple Five, the Canadian company seeking to restart the dormant entertainment and retail mall in East Rutherford once known as Xanadu, said it is planning to build the world’s largest wave-generating pool as part of a proposed expansion at the site. The indoor facility — the size of a football field — is to be built by American Wave Machines of Solana Beach, Calif., which specializes in high-tech wave pools for surfing.

“This is one of the companies we’re working with to make our water park the best in the world,” Triple Five spokesman Alan Marcus said. “Triple Five always seeks to exceed what it has done in the past to enhance customer experience.”

Triple Five also owns the West Edmonton Mall in Canada — which has a water park that includes a surf pool — as well as the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn.

The proposed water park addition to American Dream, though, remains a major stumbling block in the $3.7 billion mall project that has been idle since the previous development consortium overseeing its construction, headed by California-based Colony Capital LLC, ran out of money in 2009.

Triple Five says it wants to expand the unfinished mall with a 22-acre addition that would not only include a water park, but an adjoining indoor theme park.

The Giants and Jets, which play at nearby MetLife Stadium, have been fighting the expansion for months in Superior Court in Bergen County. Attorneys for the National Football League teams argue the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority violated a 2006 agreement when it allowed the complex to grow beyond the initial design of Xanadu without the teams’ approval.

The teams claim any expansion would bring traffic to a standstill around the stadium on game days and want Triple Five to keep the water park and amusement park shut down when the teams play at home. The developers have refused to put a limit on operating hours.

In its own lawsuit, Triple Five charged the Giants and Jets with orchestrating a campaign to prevent the project from opening.

The former Xanadu project, now called American Dream, where developers are looking to add a water park.

Marcus said the litigation has not changed the financial and construction schedule although he said a date for the groundbreaking of the American Dream reboot has not been set. While it will be privately funded, Triple Five is seeking to arrange for up to $800 million in tax exempt bonds that would be issued through various public agencies to help finance construction.

The former Xanadu project - widely derided for its garish exterior - was never completed on the inside, with most of the storefronts still empty shells. It incorporates an indoor ski slope, a sky diving attraction and is to include a Ferris wheel, an ice skating arena, movie theaters and other attractions.

Triple Five so far has offered little detail about the scope of its ambitious expansion plans, although it has an agreement with DreamWorks Animation, the Hollywood studio that created “Shrek” and “Madagascar,” to license its characters, storytelling and technology for the theme park.

No information on the water park has been released, but word of the huge wave pool project leaked out during an industry conference in Laguana Beach, Calif., last month. John Luff, who heads business development for American Wave Machines, told attendees the indoor surf park would be the size of a football field and be able to generate everything from 8-foot barreling peaks to beginner learning waves, allowing for authentic surfing on real surfboards with fins.

Luff would not comment yesterday on the project and company officials referred all questions to Triple Five.

The firm is one of several that design surfing pools. American Wave Machines constructs both stationary wave machines and larger wave and swell pools that simulate real ocean waves. In one, a wave is created at one end and then travels and breaks within the pool, mimicking the ocean. The other creates an endless standing wave made by continuously pumping water in a recirculating pool, much like a big rapid in a river.

According to the company’s webite, it has 15 installations located from the Caribbean to Sweden, and is building a major indoor surfing facility in Nashua, N.H.

New Jersey already has a sizable surfing community along the Jersey Shore. But long-time American Dream critic Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, said the addition of a waterpark only adds to the environmental impact of the mega-project.

“It’s pretty ironic that they are putting in a waterpark atop a wetlands,” he said. “Surfing? Why don’t they just wait for the next hurricane storm surge? You could have been talking about doing some real curls in the parking lot.”

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