Xanadu Lives Again in New Jersey

Xanadu, the $2 billion retail project in New Jersey that was the last gasp of the failing Mills Corp., is being revived.

Triple Five Worldwide (Edmonton, Alta.), chosen more than two years ago by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to revive the project, says it plans to resume construction in the coming weeks, more than four years after work stopped.

“Our intent is to start shortly,” Tony Armlin, vp for development construction, told The New York Times. “We’ve never wavered in our intent to move forward. This is a great project.”

Triple Five, which also owns West Edmonton Mall and Mall of America, said it plans to spend another $1.7 billion to develop the project, which now includes a glass-domed water park, an amusement park inspired by DreamWorks Animation, a performing arts center, an indoor ski hill, a movie theater, 400 stores and more than 50 restaurants.

The project is now being called American Dream Meadowlands. H & M, Uniqlo, Zara and Forever 21 are among dozens of retailers who have signed conditional letters of intent to move into the complex

Armlin said Triple Five plans to reach an agreement with the lenders that control the project by late summer or early fall, to invest $200 million of its own money, take out a $700 million construction loan, raise as much as $450 million in secondary loans and sell up to $650 million in tax-exempt bonds. But, he told The Times, construction will begin well before that.

The Christie administration has offered hundreds of millions of dollars in public financing for a project that was once hailed as cost free to taxpayers. Christie has also promised that the project would be complete by the time nearby Giants Stadium hosts the 2014 Super Bowl, but that isn’t going to happen. The New York Giants and Jets, who play at the stadium, sued to block the expanded project last month on the grounds the project would turn game days into a traffic nightmare, a violation of their lease, which contains a veto over any expansion of the original mall..

“It defies logic to say to have a complex that attracts 55 million, or 40 million, people a year, adding thousands and thousands of cars, and say it would not have a disastrous effect on ingress and egress,” said Giants president John Mara.

The teams have also insisted that the amusement and water parks be closed on game days, arguing that the crowds will wreak havoc. “Our endgame is not to kill the project,” said Mara. “It’s to protect our core business.”

Triple Five contends that highway improvements and mass transit connections surrounding the stadium and the adjacent mall, racetrack and arena will make the impact negligible. “We have worked hard to appease their concerns,” said Armlin. “The inability to reach a settlement clearly concerns us. There has to be something else going on.”