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  #81  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2011, 7:36 PM
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Originally Posted by Infernal_Elf View Post
Now that's a sleek ski slope. The one at Xanadu is a joke. I'd be hard pressed to think of a worse cladding system, unless they just decided to slap some stucco or shingles on the walls.
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  #82  
Old Posted Apr 8, 2011, 12:39 PM
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How Ugly!

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At least its easy to spot from the ESB


My Photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/34734039@N04/
It's so ugly!
And repainting it will not help, cause it's not just a color problem.
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  #83  
Old Posted May 4, 2011, 4:31 PM
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/ny...er=rss&emc=rss

Developers and Christie Detail a Plan for Xanadu



An interior view of the unfinished Xanadu mall in the Meadowlands. On Tuesday, Gov. Chris Christie and developers
laid out a new vision for completing and expanding the vast complex.


By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
May 3, 2011

Quote:
Much bigger and more expensive, but less gaudy: Gov. Chris Christie and developers laid out a new vision on Tuesday for completing and expanding the vast retail and entertainment complex formerly known as Xanadu in the Meadowlands.

Triple Five — the developer taking over the project, which is now called American Dream@Meadowlands — announced that the mall, where work ground to a halt two years ago, would open for business in late 2013.

Mr. Christie disclosed that Triple Five was also in talks with New Jersey officials about taking over the Izod Center, the struggling sports and entertainment arena nearby.

It was revealed last week that the state, lenders and Triple Five had reached an agreement for the developer to restart and expand the immense, unfinished Xanadu project. But no one provided any details until Tuesday, when state officials and executives of Triple Five held a news conference here and, for the first time, gave journalists in hard hats a tour of the almost-completed main building.

“It’s finally going to move forward now,” Mr. Christie said of the project, which has already burned through $1.9 billion and two developers, each of whom ran out of money.

“It’s going to move forward and be finished.”

The company unveiled artists’ renderings showing a simpler, more muted look both inside and out, including a largely pale blue skin to replace the exterior jumble of bright colors and shapes.

Triple Five revealed on Tuesday that it planned to spend $1.5 billion or more. It said it would expand the project to about 3 million square feet, from 2.2 million, by adding a water park and an amusement park, both under a climate-controlled, glass-and-steel dome alongside the New Jersey Turnpike. The firm has not yet acquired the land needed for that expansion.

New features will also be added to the main structure, including an ice-skating rink and possibly a rooftop outdoor movie theater, Triple Five said.


Officials with the state and Triple Five said the complex would draw more than 50 million people a year, even more than the 42 million who go to the company’s Mall of America, a similar but larger shopping center outside of Minneapolis.

The planned 2013 opening could have political implications for Mr. Christie, who expects to run for re-election in November of that year. The governor, a Republican, had vowed to resuscitate the project, which was devised and derailed under his Democratic predecessors.

Officials hope the mall can take advantage of the 2014 Super Bowl, to be played at New Meadowlands Stadium, a short distance away.

The state has already spent, by some accounts, as much as $1 billion on financing, tax breaks and highway improvements to support the development.

The state will provide about $200 million in financing to Triple Five, and Mr. Christie has said that in return for such aid, the state must share in the benefits if the project succeeds.

The governor declined to say on Tuesday what financial arrangements would be made, but said, “we will get our investment back, and then some.”

That was disputed by Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, who said the developer should be paying the state, which owns the land, rather than the other way around. He raised concerns about traffic and other environmental consequences of the project, adding, “New Jersey needs another mall like we need another Superfund site.”

The concept behind such megaprojects is that drawing and keeping crowds requires a variety of entertainment options, and American Dream will include features like an indoor ski slope, a movie theater, a live theater and a planned Ferris wheel.

No one has embraced the model more enthusiastically than Triple Five, which is owned by the Ghermezian family, based in Canada. It owns both the Mall of America and the 5.3 million-square-foot West Edmonton Mall in Alberta, North America’s largest — both of which include features like amusement parks.

Those complexes draw legions of tourists, and Nader Ghermezian, chairman of Triple Five, said half the visitors to American Dream would be from outside the immediate area. He said that even people on layovers at Newark Liberty International Airport would visit the mall, and that his firm was talking with the airlines about that.

Architecturally, Triple Five plans to make cosmetic changes to the interior, striving for a simpler, more streamlined look, while eliminating some walls to allow more sunlight in. Even toned down, however, the vast complex, which will be brightly lighted at night, will be hard to miss, noted Paul Ghermezian, the firm’s senior vice president.

“People always notice how you see the Manhattan skyline from here,” he said. “What they don’t think about is, that means Manhattan can see us.

“Millions of people are going to look out their windows and say, ‘Hey, what’s that?’ ”



The empty mall, where work ground to a halt two years ago, will now open for business in late 2013, developers announced.
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  #84  
Old Posted May 4, 2011, 4:42 PM
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The developers say this will have 7.5 million square feet, and will be the largest mall on earth.

Much bigger than either Mall of America or West Edmonton Mall.

But Phase I, for 2013, will only be slightly over 3 million feet.
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  #85  
Old Posted May 5, 2011, 6:22 AM
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Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
The developers say this will have 7.5 million square feet, and will be the largest mall on earth.

Much bigger than either Mall of America or West Edmonton Mall.

But Phase I, for 2013, will only be slightly over 3 million feet.

Well, its best they just focus on phase 1 for now anyway. This is a development that has struggled to get built, so 3 million is good, 7.5 million is great. Just as long as they get it built and opened.


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http://www.njbiz.com/article/2011050...45/0/FRONTPAGE

Upon full buildout, the project, formerly known as Xanadu, will total 7.5 million square feet of space, including 3 million square feet of retail and amusement space, as well as 4.5 million square feet of planned hotels, convention center, performing arts center, sports center and additional venues.

Triple Five said it is planning to invest $1.5 billion in the retail and amusement components of the complex, which has already cost $2 billion; Gov. Chris Christie said Tuesday that the state has pledged $200 million in financing from the state Economic Development Authority.

The first phase of the project will encompass the 2 million-square-foot existing building, which is scheduled to open fall of 2013, as well as new features such as indoor amusement and water parks, which would open by the first half of 2014, according to Paul Ghermezian, senior vice president at Triple Five, speaking during a media tour of the project site on Tuesday.

The subsequent phases "will be many years in the making," said Triple Five spokesman Dan Jasper.

The American Dream name has a personal significance for Triple Five, which was started by "a family of immigrants," said Ghermezian. His uncle Nader Ghermezian, Triple Five's chairman, and other family members "came here looking for the American Dream … and they achieved it."


http://www.northjersey.com/realestat...n_in_2013.html



http://photos.nj.com/star-ledger/201...4xanadu_4.html
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  #86  
Old Posted May 5, 2011, 7:39 AM
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...let's think about dreams, that is Xanadu
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  #87  
Old Posted May 5, 2011, 10:47 AM
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West Edmonton's 3.8 million square feet is the leaseable retail square footage only. The total size of the mall including common areas, waterpark, amusement park, mini-golf etc. is probably twice that.

They would really benefit if NJ Transit could create a one-seat ride to the Meadowlands. That would make a huge difference to the number of tourists they could potentially attract instead of forcing them to transfer and wait in Secaucus.

Last edited by J. Will; May 5, 2011 at 11:30 AM.
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  #88  
Old Posted May 6, 2011, 1:41 AM
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They would really benefit if NJ Transit could create a one-seat ride to the Meadowlands. That would make a huge difference to the number of tourists they could potentially attract instead of forcing them to transfer and wait in Secaucus.
Um, you know the irony of that statement, right? Christie canceled the ARC project - which would have enabled a one-seat ride from Penn Station to the Meadowlands - on the basis of cost-cutting just a few months before announcing further subsidies for this ill-conceived money pit of a private development.

I'm sure the amusement park aspect will do okay, but the mall is only going to succeed in poaching business from older nearby malls, resulting in a net zero gain in sales tax for the state.

I don't know why New Jersey persists in these stupid development schemes in the Meadowlands. They've been nothing but a money-suck since day one. New Jersey taxpayers are still paying for the old Giants stadium - even though it was demolished last year. And how much money does the useless Izod Center cost the state to maintain?
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  #89  
Old Posted May 6, 2011, 2:12 AM
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Originally Posted by KVNBKLYN View Post
Um, you know the irony of that statement, right? Christie canceled the ARC project - which would have enabled a one-seat ride from Penn Station to the Meadowlands - on the basis of cost-cutting just a few months before announcing further subsidies for this ill-conceived money pit of a private development.
Actually, after I made the statement, I looked at Secaucus Junction on some aerial photos, and it's obvious trains can't change direction there, so I guess some new track would have been required. Funny that ARC would have built such tracks (which I didn't know). If people had to transfer and wait, sometimes long waits, I can't see a lot of tourists going there from Manhattan.
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  #90  
Old Posted May 6, 2011, 2:46 AM
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If people had to transfer and wait, sometimes long waits, I can't see a lot of tourists going there from Manhattan.
Neither can I. This will attract mostly suburban NJ mall shoppers plus a handful of rich foreigners who fly into Newark expressly for the purpose of shopping in NJ malls and a few New Yorkers curious about the sky slope.
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  #91  
Old Posted May 6, 2011, 8:53 AM
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I think it will be attractive mainly to people who want to drive there.

Quote:
American Dream will include 12,000 "walk-up" parking spots, which directly connect to the complex, and an additional 25,000 "overflow" parking spaces, said Ghermezian.
I think it will succeed if done properly. They are counting on making this a destination in its own right. I don't know that it will attract any tourists from New York (they don't come to New York for malls), but I do think it can draw people from the tri-state area. The problem is that there are so many malls accross the metro area, this one would really have to be unique, there has to be one-of-a-kind attractions.
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  #92  
Old Posted May 12, 2011, 1:48 AM
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/re...er=rss&emc=rss

Bringing the Mall of America Magic to New Jersey





The roller coaster at Mall of America.


By TERRY PRISTIN
May 10, 2011

Quote:
When the Ghermezian brothers, immigrants from Iran who had settled in western Canada, wanted to build the largest shopping center in the United States a quarter-century ago, they shipped a submarine that had been custom-built for them in Vancouver — and was an offbeat attraction at their mall in Edmonton — to Bloomington, Minn., and parked it in front of City Hall. Their company, Triple Five, won the development rights for what would become the Mall of America.

But the Ghermezians, who last week unveiled their vision for reviving and expanding the long-stalled Xanadu retail-and-entertainment complex in East Rutherford, N.J., no longer have to resort to stunts to promote themselves.

Since they assumed sole ownership of the Mall of America in 2006, after wresting control from their partner, Simon Property Group, the nation’s largest shopping center operator, they have improved the performance of the 4.2-million-square-foot mall, drawing tens of millions of shoppers and tourists even in the worst economic climate in decades. They reported sales last year of $640 per square foot, well above the industry average of $385. “They’ve done a pretty amazing job at Mall of America,” said Dick Grones, a partner in Cambridge Commercial Realty, a brokerage in Edina, Minn. “It’s better than when Simon had it.”

Triple Five’s flagship, the even larger West Edmonton Mall in Alberta, is also thriving, with a vacancy rate of only 1 percent, said Don Ghermezian, who is president of both malls and will have a similar role at Xanadu, which is being rebranded as American Dream@Meadowlands.

Sales per square foot at West Edmonton, which occupies 5.3 million square feet, were 625 Canadian dollars ($648) last year, compared with an average in that country of 565 Canadian dollars, said Mr. Ghermezian, who is 37. He is a member of the younger generation of Ghermezian men who are assuming more control now that the eldest of the founding brothers, Don’s father, Eskander, is 71.

The West Edmonton Mall opened in phases beginning in 1981 and has about 550 stores. It is undergoing a multimillion-dollar renovation. Among its attractions are a five-acre water park, an ice-skating rink, an artificial saltwater lake with sea lions, an 18-hole miniature golf course, a 447,000-square foot amusement park and a casino. A Simons department store, the first outside Quebec, is expected to open in September. The brothers have said they were inspired to combine shopping and entertainment on a large scale by Iranian bazaars.

Both malls are “wildly successful,” said Jim Sullivan, a senior retail real estate analyst for Green Street Advisors of Newport Beach, Calif. “They draw a lot of people, and retailers want to be where the people are.”

New Jersey officials are pinning a lot of hopes that a similar formula will work at American Dream, the long-dormant 2.4-million-square-foot complex with a 600-foot indoor ski slope and a much-derided exterior design that is on state-owned land in the Meadowlands Sports Complex. The Ghermezians plan to invest $1 billion to expand the mall — which has already cost $1.9 billion — by adding features like a water park and ice rink.

But Triple Five does not have an unblemished track record. Like many developers, it became overextended in Las Vegas and stumbled badly. Lenders have foreclosed on five loans, and four other loans are in distress, according to Real Capital Analytics, a New York research firm. In 2009, for example, Triple Five had to abandon plans for an $800 million Great Mall of Las Vegas on 60 acres of land that it had acquired for $42.5 million in 2004. Triple Five surrendered the site, which is in North Las Vegas, to its lender, Key Bank, which sold it last December for $6.3 million.

In addition, Triple Five’s plans to add 5.6 million square feet to the Mall of America — announced in 2006 — have had to be postponed and scaled back. Last August, Bank Midwest of Kansas City, Mo., foreclosed on a Ramada Inn that Triple Five had bought for $19.5 million, apparently for strategic reasons because it was between Interstate 494 and the land where the mall expansion is planned.

But some plans are moving forward. Last week, developers of a 500-room Radisson Blu that will be the first luxury hotel at the Mall of America completed their financing and announced a ground-breaking for late this month.

Triple Five is named for three generations of Ghermezians and the five founders, four brothers — Eskander, Nader, Raphael and Bahman — and their father, Jacob, who died in 2000. Raised in Tehran, the brothers came to North America to study at McGill University in Montreal. As students, the three older brothers became successful rug merchants. After their father left Iran in the late 1960s to join his sons, the family moved to Alberta because of the booming oil and gas business and began accumulating vast amounts of land, most of which was eventually sold. Today, the company’s business interests include mining and biotechnology.

...Don Ghermezian said the family had learned from its troubles in Las Vegas. “We’ve become a lot more conservative in our approach, in terms of the projects we’ll go after,” he said. “We have to be 100 percent confident we’ll be able to make it successful. With American Dream, we think we’ve found that.”
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  #93  
Old Posted May 12, 2011, 10:21 PM
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Originally Posted by NYguy View Post
Well, its best they just focus on phase 1 for now anyway. This is a development that has struggled to get built, so 3 million is good, 7.5 million is great. Just as long as they get it built and opened.






http://www.northjersey.com/realestat...n_in_2013.html



http://photos.nj.com/star-ledger/201...4xanadu_4.html
Now that's what I'm talking about. That's what should have been built in the first place. Looks like this will finally be what it was meant to be.

That's 3 different ways of saying the same thing
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  #94  
Old Posted May 12, 2011, 10:44 PM
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One of the rendering of the interior had windows that showed skyscrapers outside making it look like it was in the middle of Manhattan, lol.
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  #95  
Old Posted May 13, 2011, 6:47 AM
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From the new interior renderings, it looks like they would ditch the ugly saturated color scheme for something bright and light colored. I like that. The scheme in the existing photos is already very dated. It reminds me of the malls that went up in the early 2000's. They'd paint the ceilings purple or blue, and splash red or orange on the walls.


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  #96  
Old Posted May 13, 2011, 6:57 AM
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It's fine to have "entertainment" options, but if they want people coming back regularly, it needs to be more of a full-fledged "regular" shopping centre as well than it was originally going to be. Seeing as how it's Triple Five in charge now, I'm sure it will be more of an actual mall, and not just an alternative "entertainment centre".

On a side not, I was on a flight from Toronto to Edmonton with one of the Ghermezian brothers years ago.
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  #97  
Old Posted Oct 20, 2011, 1:19 AM
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http://www.rew-online.com/2011/10/19...in-new-jersey/

Officials say no more “ugly” for New Jersey



October 19, 2011
By Liana Grey

Quote:
Two major makeovers could help create a “suburban Times Square” just off Route 3 in New Jersey. The state Sports and Exposition Authority has just given the green light to plans by Newmark Knight Frank chairman Jeff Gural to create a sleeker, more compact Meadowlands grandstand. And American Dream, the multicolored behemoth on the eastern edge of the Meadowlands Sports Complex formerly known as the Xanadu Mall and dubbed the “ugliest building in New Jersey” received final approval for a stylish transformation of its own.

The three million square complex, which will undergo extensive renovations and a 4.5 million square foot expansion costing a total of $1.5 billion, “has the potential to become a suburban Times Square,” according to Glenn Brill, a managing director at FTI Consulting, which worked with Mills Corporation, the mall’s original developer, when construction began.

Gural acquired the troubled Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford earlier this year in hopes of rescuing it from being shut down by Governor Chris Christie’s office. Construction is now expected to start in February on the new facility designed by Climans Green Liang Architects, the same firm which designed Gural’s much-smaller Tioga Downs in upstate New York.

Meanwhile, Triple Five — which took over the beleaguered Xanadu last year — announced the project received final approval at last week’s Sports Authority meeting for an exterior makeover that will introduce a white and silver color scheme, and replace garish green and orange windows with glass.
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  #98  
Old Posted Oct 29, 2011, 11:51 AM
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suburban Times Square?

“has the potential to become a suburban Times Square”

I really don't believe that!
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  #99  
Old Posted Oct 30, 2011, 3:21 AM
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Gural acquired the troubled Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford earlier this year in hopes of rescuing it from being shut down by Governor Chris Christie’s office. Construction is now expected to start in February on the new facility designed by Climans Green Liang Architects, the same firm which designed Gural’s much-smaller Tioga Downs in upstate New York.
I went to this architects website to see the other equestrian projects they've done. Terrible. Its a smorgasbord of terrible. Truly clown architecture. Embarrassing. Hope for the best, expect the least best.
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  #100  
Old Posted Mar 15, 2012, 8:05 PM
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...LEFTTopStories

Mall Plan Irks Jets, Giants



March 14, 2012
By HEATHER HADDON

Quote:
New Jersey's quest to build one of the nation's largest shopping centers has long been plagued by money problems, but now a new obstacle has emerged: potential opposition from two professional football teams, the Giants and Jets. The powerful franchises are concerned that the American Dream Meadowlands would intensify traffic around their home field, MetLife Stadium, worsening what is already the No. 1 complaint from fans. The stadium is unique among the region's sports facilities in that the majority of fans travel there by car. Exiting the parking lot already takes about an hour.

Transit advocates and some local mayors also believe the $1.8 billion entertainment complex—the latest incarnation of a project originally called Xanadu—will cause highway gridlock, but the teams are a far more influential force in New Jersey. Together, they spent $1.6 billion to build the new MetLife Stadium in 2010 and have the ear of Republican Gov. Chris Christie.

The sports teams want the American Dream developers to shut down an amusement and water park on the days of their 20 home games during the regular and preseason, people familiar with the negotiations said. If that doesn't happen, the teams would consider a legal challenge, these people said. Talks between the teams and the developers, Triple Five of Edmonton, Canada, got "testy" two weeks ago over traffic, one person said.


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