#Manyland supermall movie

Xanadu’s developer, Mills Corp., completed most of the main building before running out of money in 2006. When ground broke on the site in 2004, hundreds of guests attended a million-dollar party, with martinis in one tent and artificial snow in another. store with a 30-foot glass facade.īefore the American Dream was the American Dream, it was Xanadu. He can’t name many names, but he does mention Hermès, which will open an 8,000-sq.-ft. Fourteen retailers are building their largest outlets in American Dream. The stores have to be “experiential,” Ghermezian says. The fountain that will somehow part every two hours, allowing two members of Cirque du Soleil to emerge and perform acrobatics for seven minutes. The electronic tracking system parents can use for their kids. We are barraged with fanciful details about gardens, waterfalls, and Champagne and caviar bars.

He says American Dream’s retail space is already 70 percent leased, although the mall won’t open for two more years. “On par with Dubai” is how he puts it, referring to the huge mall in the United Arab Emirates’ largest city. Ghermezian expects the mall to be the highest-grossing in the country. To get to the American Dream’s indoor ski lift, visitors will have to walk through a faux Alpine village that consists mostly of boutiques. “It’s there to push traffic to the stores.” This isn’t just a tenet of megamall economics it’s a design feature. “We’re spending a billion dollars on a water park and amusement park,” he says.

#Manyland supermall movie

Beyond its 450 shops and restaurants, half of the 3 million-square-foot complex will be devoted to entertainment: a DreamWorks water park, a Nickelodeon theme park, a Legoland, a ski slope, an aquarium, a performing arts space, a movie theater, an ice rink, a miniature golf course, and a kosher food hall, all enclosed in a glass bubble. Its extravagant attractions make it “internet-proof,” says Ghermezian, who is in his 40s and wears a big watch and expensive sneakers. Online shopping is killing malls American Dream is one of only two in the country being built from the ground up. The first thing Ghermezian means for us to understand is that his family isn’t building a mall. Photographer: Adrian Gaut for Bloomberg Businessweek

The future center of the universe is across the turnpike, a 91-acre tract of filled-in wetlands now home to a structure Governor Chris Christie, something of an expert on dismal spectacles, called “the ugliest damn building in New Jersey, maybe America.” Triple Five are the incredible guys in question Ghermezian is the company’s president. Ghermezian is speaking in the New Jersey Meadowlands offices of Triple Five, a family business that owns North America’s two biggest shopping centers: West Edmonton Mall and Mall of America.

If not, “you’ll be the first ever to leave here without thinking, ‘Holy shit. “This is a $4.8 billion project that will be the center of the universe,” he says, promising we’ll be impressed. Third, if they’re about his family, he won’t say much. Second, we can ask him only a few questions, at the end. First, we’re not allowed to record his eight-minute presentation. Don Ghermezian wants to pitch us on the American Dream, but he has a few conditions.