Abandoned - American Dream Mall

[Music] what's up guys my name is Jake and welcome to abandoned episode 54 in a country and economy where it only seems that indoor shopping malls are closing in 2019 a highly controversial outlier broke that closing streak on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike sits the American Dream shopping and entertainment complex formerly known as Meadowlands Xanadu a name I'm sure for residents who live close by sends shivers through them so today let's take a look at the shopping center that became the second largest mall in America one that's been through multiple delays sat abandoned for years and even today has an uncertain future it all began in the mid-1990s when the mills corporation began talks of constructing a shopping center these plans eventually took shape in 1996 when Mills officially announced their plan to build an enormous mall in the Empire tract an undisturbed set of marshland around four miles from New York City this plan would effectively destroy and develop much of the land and immediately this was met by severe opposition from environmentalist groups and local leaders by 2001 New Jersey's Governor Jim McGreevey told Mills that his government would not be issuing permits for construction killing any hope of this project though a year later the New Jersey sports and Exposition Authority came up with a solution for Mills as environmental issue actually they wanted a new and major development in their area and started a contest to which they would award the land rights to a developer of their choosing they had a somewhat open plot of land bordering their Continental Airlines Arena which was currently only used for parking so the Mills Corporation along with their partners McCallie Realty set out to take advantage of this idea and retooled their mall project into something brand-new that they called the Meadowlands Xanadu this proposal was nothing short of enormous they wanted to build a 4.8 million square-foot per mall and entertainment complex filled to the brim with shopping sports and entertainment this proposal was packed with stuff too not only would there be regular shopping but Xanadu would feature a lot more believe me there's a ambitious long list of stuff that they wanted to pack into this all-encompassing complex such as a 20-story indoor ski slope an indoor wave pool and waterpark a New Jersey Sports and Music Hall of Fame a giant movie theater complex Wildlife Museum Formula One indoor racetrack a 3,000 seat concert venue underwater shark exhibit and restaurant a circus and clowns school over 2 million square feet of office and hotel space and finally an environmentally themed restaurant with a working volcano yeah and that wasn't even the entire list of the absolute madness these developers were creating here Xanadu was nothing short of a massive concept and would have been one of the largest indoor public buildings ever constructed Mills and Matt Kelly claimed they could build this one-of-a-kind project for around 1.3 billion dollars which today is around 1.8 billion dollars and Xanadu was submitted alongside many other proposals including ones from Westfield and Hearts Mountain industries ultimately though the committee had chosen Xanadu with their analytics showing that this project would create 13,000 permanent jobs and supply the local economy with over three billion dollars by 2012 so the Meadowlands an Adu was given the green light and ground was broken on September 29 2004 with a tentative opening date of 2007 but then came the problems as construction continued the mills Corporation was now under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission they were apparently facing financial problems and couldn't support the mega development so they sold their partially built Xanadu property to Colony Capital for around five hundred million dollars the mills corporation ultimately went on to be acquired themselves and eventually dissolved by the late 2000s by now the majority of the main building had been constructed with the completion date of around 2008 and a number of large retailers already signed on to be day1 stores making around 60% of the mall leased out as the entire footprint took shape and the indoor ski slope rose above the asphalt the exterior was painted which many residents already thought was tacky at an eyesore to pile on even further Colony Capital announced they would be adding an observation wheel to the project with a huge Pepsi logo plastered across the side all while pushing the opening dates another year to the summer of 2009 but then came the housing crisis and the accompanying recession too very catastrophic events to happen while building a super bowl by May of 2009 Xanadu was over 80% completes an almost 90% complete in the interior common spaces the snow slopes were just about finished as were the interior lobbies with the massive LED cone displays but as the financial crisis worsened one of the main construction lenders was a subsidiary of Lehman Brothers who had just become the largest bankruptcy ever so when they went under much of the financing dried up and the construction site was short around 23 million dollars work immediately stopped as colony was not able to secure enough money to continue Xanadu sat abandoned and incomplete from this point on essentially just the shell of a mega mall which never made it to their projected opening date during the financial crisis retailers were especially hit hard as consumers weren't buying as much as they did prior having a future opening date in a mega mall one that itself is in a rocky position was too big of a commitment for the large brands Xanadu was hemorrhaging future tenants and colony as well as the New Jersey sports and Exposition Authority were seeking ways to get the complex open after trying to sell the property off nothing had worked and even after changing the name simply to Meadowlands the building's sat abandoned in February of 2011 a 150-foot section of the ski slopes roof had collapsed ironically due to ice buildup this was yet another delay as the structure sat on Finn finally though in April of 2011 a deal was made with a new owner the triple five group the same owners of Mall of America and the West Edmonton Mall had agreed and secured a 700 million dollar loan to finish the project triple five had experience with mega malls in their portfolio and the unfinished complex in New Jersey was in their eyes the next big opportunity for them with a new opening date of now 2014 just in time for the Super Bowl they rebranded the mall with a new name American dream Meadowlands triple 5 had a lot riding on this project too as in order to get this loan they had to put up there two other malls as collateral and began shaping American dream into how they wanted it along with what was already built triple 5 also planned to add another structural edition of an indoor Nickelodeon amusement park and waterpark along with an unbranded ice rink in total the triple 5 group pledged to spend another 1 billion dollars to get the Complex open at the time Governor Chris Christie was also adamant about getting the structure finished his governments also pledged to provide around 200 million dollars in tax incentives to help the Canadian developers along however despite all of this money in tradition things of course were not going to go as planned by 2012 the New York Giants and Jets had filed a lawsuit to try and block American dream from being built this is absolutely insane so stay with me here so prior to any mall construction there was the 80,000 seat giant stadium however in 2010 the Jets and Giants opened a new 82,000 seat MetLife Stadium directly beside the old one then demolished it in typical American city fashion the new MetLife Stadium inherited the knowledge of the super mall directly beside it to someday be finished otherwise they were just going to have a massive steel shell in their parking lot regardless the two teams sued triple 5 on concerns that the completed mall would overcrowd the parking availability in the area again it's not like they were blindsided by this the New Jersey Sports Authority made it happen anyway this slowed down progress until 2013 when construction finally resumed on the mall Xanadu or now American Dream had been sitting abandoned and stuck in time for over four and a half years weeds and long grass had been growing alongside the distinct and gaudy exterior which many residents knew all too well triple five by now had more or less settled on their final design for the property and with construction on the theme park in water park well underway they secured several large and high-end retail brands to open up stores within the American dream despite the positive press on this work once again abruptly stopped in early 2016 after a potential bond payment fell through a few months later with the construction site stalled the New Jersey sports and Exposition Authority had swooped in once again and offered over eight hundred million dollars in bonds to help complete American dream though this became an on and off issue through the rest of the year as financing was delayed eventually triple five sought out even more capital and secured a 1.6 billion dollar investment from JPMorgan Chase and finally construction was once again resumed the developers had now set opening dates of phased unveils first with the indoor theme park then incrementally other areas of the mall they stated that by March of 2020 everything should be open including 350 stores and 100 restaurants finally after over 15 years of construction delays abandonments and new owners the first phase of the American Dream mall opened with the Nickelodeon Universe indoor theme park as well as the ice skating rink the reception - these were pretty positive as everyone can enjoy an indoor theme park with actual rollercoasters to some degree triple 5 knew what they were doing Nickelodeon Universe was already very successful in Mall of America so bringing an indoor theme park eight miles outside of New York City could work well however this opening wasn't without its problems first day one parking there regardless of what you're doing at the mall will cost you up to $24 I'm pretty sure that's not including the up to $80 admission ticket into the theme park there were also problems with the structure itself since the building was essentially designed and partially built in the early 2000s despite American dream being a brand new complex there is rust and mildew throughout you can just tell by the parking garages themselves that their older structures inside since there are only two attractions open there are long white bland corridors of drywall facades where stores were supposed to go even the construction within was also questionable as guests often noticed many errors across the brand new areas at this point the building was simply nowhere near being complete and arguably not even ready for guests but triple five pressed on opening big snow the indoor ski hill and somewhat soft opening the DreamWorks waterpark that water park by the way will cost you up to $99 plus tax for admission which is absolutely outrageous they're essentially positioning themselves as a comparable resort destination to places like volcano Bay or Typhoon Lagoon in Florida however both of which are actually cheaper on the upside though they did make parking free so yeah and that brings us to today with yet another recession passing through at the time of writing this and retail in big trouble American Dream was forced to shut down in March of 2020 of course coinciding with when they were expecting to have the entire mall open but since the global pandemic news has only gotten worse for the property a number of the many retailers already signed on to open a store within have pulled out or declared bankruptcy in general triple five have now been scrambling to format their enormous shopping mall to conform to this new trend as they announced American Dream will be moving to around 70 percent entertainment and just 30 percent retail but even triple five themselves seem to be having a hard time through this economic downturn as in June of 2020 they failed to pay two consecutive months of their mortgage payments for their Mall of America property according to Bloomberg triple 5 is in around five billion dollars worth of debt which isn't comforting news for the New Jersey super malls future when you take a step back and look at this whole mess it is truly staggering how poorly executed and unlucky the people behind this horrific project were plans were getting going in 1996 that was over 23 years ago and the mall is still not fully open if you want to see how truly bizarre the construction process was for the property all you need to do is look at it from the sky you can see in 2005 the first structure bill was one of the parking garages however for some reason a brand new parking lot was paved next to it then immediately built on top of you'll also notice that a footbridge to the giant stadium was extended to connect to this new garage but two years later it too was demolished so the rest of the Xanadu structure could be built I mean who was the project manager and why was it done this way it just seems like such a waste of time materials and money it makes no sense to me now as a sort of finished mall triple 5 estimates 40 million people a year will visit American dream which seems like an overly optimistic projection for an otherwise seemingly cursed project when it was all said and done the property ultimately cost over five billion dollars to get where they are today over 1.1 billion dollars of tax-free government bonds were issued to get the property finished and really at this point it's rather unbelievable what they have to show for that as the end product even what the structure opened I don't know if it's ever even going to look like a completed property and that's the problem when you're inheriting someone else's dated unfinished architectural design especially one this large with so much to do yeah I think that 2006 interiors were tacky and dated but at least they had a style and color in them they had a purpose and a custom design to fit that style from what I understand the almost finished mall interior's were scrapped and triple five came in and just slapped some paint on it said it's modern and called it a day to me in my personal opinion it looks like a cheap modern and boring design no creativity and sure you can chalk that up to saying that it's basically still under construction but even if so the massive empty concourses are open to the public which I believe are open to criticism honestly I don't know what is going to happen to American dream triple five are facing an uphill battle with the property along with their extreme debt load it might also shock you to know that triple five are planning to build another American dream mall in Miami which apparently is moving forward all in all Xanadu / American Dream was a bad idea from the start now there's a three million square foot white box that's more often mentioned as the butt of a joke rather than a legitimate enticing tourist destination researching this the amount of things that went wrong is astounding and the amount of money dumped into the stupid project is eye watering to me imagine the things they could have done with five billion dollars instead of building this mall honestly think about that it really is staggering and only time will tell what the true reception of this entertainment complex will be once it's fully open who knows maybe it'll actually be the next big tourist attraction in the area I honestly do hope it is successful and even I want to visit it just at a morbid curiosity but I think it's safe to say that most people don't want to think of this as the American dream thanks for watching this episode of abandoned and if you like my videos and you want to support my work patreon is the best place to do so I recently just completely overhauled the entire page with a bunch of brand new perks I also introduced brand new exclusive merchandise that you can only get on there like Polaroid prints t-shirts mugs stickers and fine art you can also see new videos a week before they go public and get your name at the end of each video support there goes directly into making these videos better and helps me make other exciting new content if you're interested a link to the page will be in the description below or you can just type in patreon.com slash bright Sun films anyway guys my name is Jake and thank you very much for watching [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Bright Sun Films

Views: 2,324,568

Rating: 4.9160442 out of 5

Keywords: abandoned, American Dream Mall, Mills Corp, abandoned mall, financial crisis, unfinished, Nickelodeon Universe, theme park, indoor water park, indoor abandoned theme park, Nickelodeon, largest mall, biggest mall, West Edmonton Mall, Mall of America, Xanadu Mall, New York City, luxury mall, shopping, retail, Miami, New Jersey, Chris Christi, 2020, 2021, 2022, urban exploration, bright sun films, bsf, Jake williams, sports, jets, indoor ski slope, PG, clean, family friendly, documentary

Id: NESqtSQGhhE

Length: 18min 34sec (1114 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 31 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/CodPolish]

I visited Nickelodeon universe like a couple of weeks before corona hit. There were a couple of rides that were unopened. Strange thinking about how it may stay and rot.

[u/DrBadIdea]

I don’t care what they say, the TMNT ride hanging for a second so you can see the Statue of Liberty is kind of cool.

[u/[deleted]]

I live in NJ, just recently moved south so I haven't been up north in a while, but yeah, you'd kinda just get used to driving past it on the highway and thinking "huh, that looks weird."

[u/TutterMouse]

Im pretty sure the American Dream is a huge money laundering scheme.