American Dream’s new mega-mall in New Jersey had an early visitor: Miami-Dade’s mayor
Two weeks before New Jersey’s American Dream mega-mall finally opened its doors after years of delay, developers led a tour through an unfinished artificial ski mountain and an indoor amusement park for some out-of-town guests with sway over an even larger retail theme park planned off the Florida Turnpike in Miami-Dade.
“Pictures don’t do it justice,” Mayor Carlos Gimenez said of his 3 1/2-hour private visit to the $3 billion Meadowlands project on Oct. 13, where he was joined by chief of staff Alex Ferro and deputy mayor Jack Osterholt. “You have to see it to appreciate it.”
Finally able to show off an American Dream location in New Jersey, Triple Five is using the partially opened Meadowlands site as a showcase for what the company can deliver in Miami.
Days before the Gimenez walk-through, Triple Five flew up a group of Miami pastors, political consultants and business representatives who supported American Dream during the approval process in 2017 and 2018. The group included Sandy Walker, an American Dream outreach consultant and sister of Miami-Dade Commissioner Barbara Jordan, and Pastor Carl Johnson, a Baptist minister from Miami who brought dozens of churchgoers to the commission chambers in 2017 to show support for the jobs American Dream could bring.
“The words I choose to use are ‘joy to the land,’” Johnson said of his visit to the New Jersey version of American Dream, which includes an indoor ski slope still under construction and an enclosed amusement park. “They put their heart into it.”
The renewed political efforts come as the company continues to meet with the Gimenez administration about public assistance for the $4 billion project outside of Hialeah and Miami Lakes. While Triple Five so far has failed in attempts to secure public dollars for American Dream Miami, the $3 billion sister project at the Meadowlands used about $1 billion in construction money tied to tax dollars.
Before Miami-Dade commissioners granted near unanimous approval of American Dream’s 200-acre development plan in May 2018, owners of Sawgrass Mills, Bayside Marketplace and other large Miami malls succeeded in inserting language to ban county money from being spent on the project. Triple Five fought the restrictions, calling them illegal and unfair, but Jordan was the only commissioner to vote against them.
And while Triple Five did not ask for government assistance publicly, Gimenez said the request was made early on in the county’s talks with the Canadian company, best known as the owner of Minnesota’s Mall of America. About two weeks after his county-funded trip to visit American Dream in New Jersey, Gimenez played host to Triple Five partner Eskandar Ghermezian in the mayor’s 29th floor office in County Hall. He said the meeting included a discussion of the potential for county financial help and the restrictions against them.
Along with next steps on the new off-ramps and roadwork needed to comply with transportation requirements for American Dream, Gimenez said the two sides also discussed “what incentives may be available from the state and county.”
“We reminded them,” Gimenez said, “about the resolution from the county.”
Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, the lawyer and lobbyist representing Triple Five in Miami-Dade talks, said only that the company had “inquired” about incentives that “may be available” from Miami-Dade.
In New Jersey, Triple Five now has a showcase of both the American Dream concept of a retail theme park, and the way governments can help build one.
Triple Five is the third major developer at the former Xanadu site, taking it over in 2011 after a former effort at a destination shopping mall next to an NFL football stadium failed. The new owner quickly fell behind schedule, too, scrapping a schedule that once had the company planning an Opening Day ahead of the 2014 Super Bowl at MetLife Stadium next door. October only brought a partial opening, with the amusement park and NHL-sized skating rink open to the public but the mall, waterpark, ski slope and other attractions are still under construction.
Government-backed financing was key to reviving the project. Of the $3.2 billion needed to build it, $300 million came from bonds borrowed against a portion of future sales tax revenue collected from the American Dream project. Another $800 million comes from bonds borrowed against a portion of future taxes Triple Five must pay on its property to the surrounding borough of East Rutherford. Those aren’t officially property taxes, but payments in lieu of taxes — a workaround by local and state governments to collect money from the government-owned and tax-exempt Meadowlands complex.
“I have a problem with the state of New Jersey giving $1 billion to this company,” said Mike Doherty, a Republican member of the New Jersey Senate. “Hopefully they’re smarter in Miami than they are in New Jersey.”
James Cassella, the mayor of East Rutherford, said the tax exemptions of the Meadowlands site gave his government little leverage in the American Dream deal and that he’s happy to be receiving yearly payments from Triple Five starting at more than $2 million and eventually hitting $7 million. That’s still small compared to the nearly $40 million going to debt on the project each year, but Cassella said a hefty local tax bill would have killed American Dream at the Meadowlands.
“It wasn’t feasible. They wouldn’t have built it,” he said. Cassella also said he’d be surprised if American Dream Miami went up without public assistance. “I don’t see them doing it without asking,” he said.
The county-dollar restrictions passed in May 2018 cover special tax districts that could let American Dream recoup some of its property taxes, along with “bond financing, grants, loans or subsidies.” It does not cover assistance from Florida, or a limited number of existing economic-development programs in Miami-Dade.
The restrictions were ratified by resolution, meaning a simple majority vote can overturn them at any time. A county mayor can veto commission votes, adding the potential urgency for Triple Five ahead of the 2020 elections. Gimenez is leaving office due to term limits, and two candidates to replace him, former mayor Alex Penelas and current commissioner Daniella Levine Cava, are critics of the project. Levine Cava was the one vote against approval of American Dream’s land-use application, and Triple Five funded a challenger to her 2018 reelection campaign.
She said she doubted an effort to overturn the subsidy restrictions would draw support from the current commission. “It was a very clear expression at the time of the vote,” she said.
Last week, Ghermezian briefly met with Jose “Pepe” Diaz, the Miami-Dade commissioner who sponsored the subsidy restrictions. “They want him to go visit the mall,” said Diaz spokeswoman Olga Vega. Diaz, whose district includes the American Dream site, hasn’t decided whether to accept the invitation, she said.
So far, Triple Five can show off only a partial version of the American Dream concept in New Jersey. Construction workers were still painting walls and laying tile for the retail section of the 90-acre complex during the Oct. 25 opening of the Nickelodeon amusement park inside. The Dreamworks water park and the Snow Park, complete with a ski slope, are expected to be running by December, with the full shopping complex ready for visitors by March.
Walker, the political consultant, said the trip was designed to give “local supporters” of American Dream a chance to see the New Jersey project. “It was a very good trip,” she said. “It was good opportunity to see what it could mean for Miami-Dade County.”
Triple Five paid for the trip, including a one-night hotel stay, according to Knowles and Johnson, the pastor at the 93rd Street Community Baptist Church. Johnson said he volunteered his time to speak before the commission on behalf of American Dream, and that the company’s only payment was when Walker, working for American Dream, picked up a $500 lunch tab at Miami’s Jackson Soul Food for parishioners after one of the meetings.
Knowles said his interest in the trip was to continue pressing American Dream for opportunities for local businesses. “I think it would be a great boon for the community,” he said.
After his Oct. 30 meeting in Miami with Gimenez, Ghermezian referred most questions to Gorlow and Diaz de la Portilla as they headed for the lobby. Asked how the Miami project was doing, Ghermezian replied: “Come and see. Come to New Jersey, and you’ll say: ‘Oh, I see.’”
This post was updated to correct the sources of county assistance not covered by the restrictions Miami-Dade imposed on the American Dream Miami project.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article236994859.html
County banned American Dream mall subsidies, but public pays for needed sewer project
At issue is a September task authorization for design work originally titled “American Dream Mall 24-inch Sanitary Force Main Improvements” but later edited to say it involved building two miles of 24-inch sewage pipes “to service an area of unincorporated Miami-Dade County along NW 170th Street.”
All mentions of American Dream Miami were scrubbed from the final version of the document released to the public.
As the largest mall in America, with plans for indoor lakes and a ski slope, American Dream is expected to create significant demand for water and sewer service in an area that’s currently wetlands and vacant property.
When the Corradino Group, a county contractor, submitted its draft task authorization to the county’s Water and Sewer Department in July, it was titled “American Dream Mall 24-inch Sanitary Force Main Improvements.” It included an extensive description of the proposed development by Canadian firm Triple Five, which also owns Minnesota’s Mall of America.
“As requested,” Corradino vice president Robert Regalado wrote a county engineer on July 24, we “are pleased to submit this revised proposal to the Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department [for] the 24-inch sanitary sewer force main improvements for the American Dream Mall.”
JUST SHORTHAND
The county now says the American Dream mentions in the early versions of the documents were shorthand for that area of Miami-Dade, since the sewer extension will allow hook-ups by a major new housing development and other projects slated to go up near the planned mega-mall.
“Staff just used the most notable and memorable project for internal communication,” Water and Sewer director Kevin Lynskey said Monday in a text message. “When it came time to issue the public docs, the language was made more accurate and inclusive.”
The deletions of the American Dream mentions were cited in a memo the county’s Office of Inspector General sent Lynskey in November seeking more information on the sewage-pipe project.
The Nov. 9 memo from Inspector General Mary Cagle notes “subsequent changes to the name of the project” and “a much more abbreviated description of the purpose of the project” from early drafts of the task order to the one that the department made public.
INSPECTOR GENERAL RAISES CONCERNS
Cagle said attaching the project to American Dream could be problematic, given restrictions on using county dollars to benefit Triple Five’s 175-acre commercial and retail complex where I-75 meets the Florida Turnpike. Constructing the pipe extension will cost about $8 million, with the $15 million cost estimate incorporating engineering and design costs, inspections and other expenses.
“It is also a matter of record that the responsibility for the installation of sewer service has been accepted by the developer(s) of the American Dream Mall and the other properties north of NW 170th Street,” Cagle wrote. She said Triple Five’s willingness to pay for sewer improvements was a “principal reason cited” by county staff in recommending approval of the mega-mall’s zoning application, which the County Commission approved in May.
The extension would run a new two-foot-wide sewage pipe along 170th Street from the existing system on Northwest 78th Avenue to 97th Avenue, about eight blocks south of the proposed American Dream site.
The end point is where the Graham Cos. plans its own massive commercial and residential project as a paired development with American Dream. The Graham Cos. and Triple Five pursued joint approval of their projects, and the Miami Lakes developer owns some of the land that’s part of the mall site. But the commission did not impose restrictions on public funds for the 300-acre Graham project.
PUBLIC FUNDS BATTLEGROUND
Public funds were the primary battleground leading up to the showdown vote by the commission, with a coalition of local mall owners, including the companies behind Bayside Marketplace and Sawgrass Mills, lobbying for legislation passed by commissioners restricting the use of county dollars to help Triple Five.
Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz, who sponsored the no-subsidy legislation for American Dream, said he did not think the sewage project violated those rules. “It’s not just for American Dream,” Diaz said of the sewage project. “If it was exclusively for them, it would not be happening.”
Daniella Levine Cava, the one commissioner to vote against approving American Dream, said she expected Triple Five to lean on government for help as it pursues construction of the largest mall in the country.
“The sewer system,” she said, “is probably just the tip of the iceberg.”
In a response to Cagle, Lynskey wrote that investigators were confusing the rules for sewage projects aimed at certain regions of the county with ones that only benefit a single project. For regional projects, the county pays for the infrastructure while developers fund shorter connections to their properties, Lynskey said.
“It is important to understand how the Department funds regional infrastructure to meet additional service demands that help drive our economy,” Lynskey wrote Cagle.
He said that any sewage extension involving pipes as large as the one heading to the American Dream project are defined as “regional,” since they can serve a large number of projects. Regional pipes are paid from a fund that consists of hook-up fees from small and large projects countywide. Triple Five and Graham eventually would be paying those to Miami-Dade as well.
Once Triple Five is ready to hook up American Dream to the new sewage pipe, it also would pay contractors to install a local connection and Miami-Dade would need to approve the work.
Building the 24-inch pipe also will make it easier for Miami-Dade to keep American Dream and Graham in the county service area, rather than pushing to join Hialeah through annexation, the Water and Sewer Department wrote in a fact sheet about the pipe project.
A county analysis estimated having both massive developments as water-and-sewer customers would generate an extra $2.4 million a year in water fees for the county.
Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, a lawyer and lobbyist representing American Dream Miami, said it would be “inaccurate” to describe the pipe project as designed for his client. The “county is not paying for sewer extension to ADM,” he wrote. Diaz de la Portilla pointed to a string of pending housing projects in Northwest Miami-Dade that would be using the new pipe as well.
The original language of the task authorization identified American Dream as the reason for the county project.
Under the heading “Project Understanding,” Corradino’s submitted draft included two paragraphs describing the American Dream project as “a ‘destination mall’ that will look more like an amusement park than a traditional mall” with “an indoor roller coaster, a lagoon with submarine rides and up to 1,200 stores.”
“To accommodate this proposed development,” the July 20 version of the task authorization read, “the Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department ... has identified the need to extend their wastewater collection and transmission system..”
By the time Water and Sewer released the final task order to the Miami Herald in an October records request, there was no mention of American Dream Miami in the document.
The need to “extend” the county’s sewage system had become a need to “improve it.” And where the draft order talked of extending the sewer pipes to “where the American Dream Mall development is planned,” the final version simply describes a project to “serve the commercial properties ... west of I-75.”
