American Dream: can this giant New Jersey mega-mall revive US retail?
The owners of a massive new shopping complex are convinced of success. But has America’s once-great retail format simply had its day?
On a dreary Tuesday morning shortly before Christmas, two passengers boarded the 9.30am 355 bus from New York’s Port Authority bus terminal bound for American Dream, the most ambitious new mall to be built in the US in a generation. One was a mall worker who didn’t want to talk to the media; the other was me.
Depending on who you speak to, American Dream, the optimistically named $5bn mall-slash-entertainment center under construction in New Jersey’s Meadowlands is either the future of shopping and a soon-to-be tourism mecca, or it’s an environmental disaster, taxpayer ripoff and a hubristic folly gambling on a retail format that has had its day.