I hate being right about this stuff, Save Jerseyans.
Last spring, CNBC reported that “[t]he biggest shopping center in the country, The Mall of America, has missed two months of payments on its $1.4 billion mortgage.” The New Jersey angle: the same developer that operates Mall for America – Triple Five – also operates the hideous, crashed-alien-spaceship-looking American Dream mall emerging from the brackish waters of New Jersey’s Meadowlands.
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Triple Five had put up a 49% stake in its Mall of America holdings (which includes a Canadian mall, too) to complete the long-troubled American Dream project. It was collateral for a $1.2 billion loan.
Now The Financial Times is reporting that the American Dream’s lenders are moving on the 49%.
Triple Five Senior Vice President of Development Kurt Hagen recently cited a “very significant cash flow crisis” brought about by COVID-19.
That may be true, but the fact remains that shopping malls were on the way out and failing all across America before this virus hit our shores. 8,600 retailers announced store closings for the last full year of the pandemic (2019) as of November of that year. As of November 2019? New Jersey taxpayer had committed over $1 billion to back up the American Dream.
It was a stupid idea then, and it’s not looking any less stupid today.
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