Mall of American Developer Avoids Foreclosure – Would Have Impacted American Dream

The developer of the American Dream Mall, Triple Five, has come to an agreement with lenders to avoid foreclosures on Mall of America in Minnesota. During the pandemic, Triple five missed mortgage payments for the Mall of America. Last year, Triple Five pledged 49% interest in Mall of America and another property as collateral for the $1.67 billion construction loan for the American Dream Mall in East Rutherford, NJ.

“Triple Five, the developer of the American Dream Mall, just cut a deal to avoid foreclosure. They received a bailout from their mortgage lender for the missed mortgage payments that are collateral for the American Dream. They dodged another financial crisis, for now. This is their fourth financial problem this year alone,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “The people pushing for the American Dream have touted the success of the Mall of America. But how successful can they be if they keep having financial problems with the collateral that Triple Five is using to finance American Dream. If the Mall of America could almost go into foreclosure, what is going to happen to American Dream.”

can they be if they almost default on their mortgage, which would then affect the financing that New Jersey put up.”

The American Dream/Xanadu mega-mall is the largest public subsidized development project in state history.  The project received $350 million in direct state subsidies from EDA plus another $800 million for financing including $100 million for road improvements, bringing it up to $1.5 billion project.

“The American Scheme mega-mall has been the largest corporate subsidy in the state’s history. Now that retail has been hurt by the coronavirus, the developers had to get bailed out. The American Dream Mall has been closed since the middle of March. When it does reopen, they will still have to follow social distancing protocols and limit the number of people. If people do want to go once it reopens, a daily visit to the mall is extremely expensive,” said Jeff Tittel. “If paying for parking wasn’t enough, a daily pass to ride American Dream rides will be $80 soon. Combined, that’s more than a season pass at Six Flags and just $5 shy of a daily pass for Disney World.”

The American Dream/Xanadu mall sits partly on wetlands in an environmentally sensitive area prone to flooding. Meadowlands resources are important for flood control, fisheries, and migratory birds.

“This is the worst project in the state’s history and it keeps getting worse. Every time there’s a problem with this mega mall, they make it bigger and throw more money at it. Malls have been going out of style, and now more malls will close because of the coronavirus and social distancing protocols. This mall is jinxed, and unfortunately it is on state-owned land and financed with public money,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “We don’t know what will be worse. If the American Dream succeeds, we will see all of the pollution from the traffic coming to the mall plus possible gridlock it would cause to commuters. If it fails, it wastes billions of taxpayer dollars.”