Future Of $4B American Dream Miami Clouded Amid Lawsuit Over Land Sale
Nearly a decade after it was first proposed, the American Dream Miami mall remains just a dream, and its future is getting more uncertain.
Triple Five Group, the Canadian development firm that proposed the 6M SF retail and entertainment complex outside of Hialeah, recently filed a lawsuit to keep alive its plan to purchase a large segment of the site to make way for what would be the largest mall in the country. The firm, run by the Ghermezian family, has also asked a skeptical Miami-Dade County Commission for what would amount to subsidies to build the $5B retail and entertainment hub.
The American Dream — which besides a large indoor mall would also include a performing arts center, an indoor waterpark, an indoor ski slope, a skating rink, an aquarium and submarine rides — was first pitched in 2015 and approved in 2018. It is slated to sit on 175 acres where Interstate 75 meets the Florida Turnpike.
But Graham Cos., a Miami Lakes-based developer, owns 63 acres of the proposed site that it agreed to sell to Triple Five in 2014. The deal never closed, and Triple Five paid $11M to keep the sales contract alive, the Miami Herald reported this month.
With the 10-year extension deadline past, Triple Five sued Graham Cos. Sept. 6 to try to secure another extension to close the deal. The developer says unforeseen delays brought on by the pandemic entitle it to additional time to close the sale.
“International Atlantic is fully committed to building the American Dream Miami project,” a spokesperson for International Atlantic, Triple Five’s Miami subsidiary, said in an emailed statement. “IA has made a large investment and substantial progress in fulfilling the closing conditions to purchase the additional land from Graham.”
The American Dream Miami would be the second megamall built by Triple Five with such branding, following the 3M SF American Dream in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
That property was 86% leased at the end of 2023 after opening in 2019 — the culmination of more than a decade of delays of its own — and weathering the pandemic.
Triple Five also operates the 5.6M SF Mall of America in Minnesota, the biggest mall in North America but still smaller than the planned American Dream Miami.
Graham Cos. was meant to be a local development partner on the project, with plans to build a mix of residential and commercial buildings next to the American Dream, according to the Herald. But several predevelopment steps that were required for Triple Five to close on the parcel it needs for its mall have yet to be completed.
Triple Five has countered in its suit that Graham Cos. was considering switching the planned development from a mixed-use complex to warehouses, a claim that a lawyer for Graham denied to the Herald.
“International Atlantic is ready, willing, and able to close now if Graham will waive the closing conditions,” the firm's spokesperson said.
In legal filings around the land dispute, Triple Five accused Graham Cos. of trying to “take the money and run,” while the developer is “in the process of securing hundreds of millions of dollars of governmental funding for highway, road, and water and sewer infrastructure,” the Herald reported.
But those subsidies are far from guaranteed. The Miami-Dade County Commission delayed a vote this month to use property taxes to pay for some of the $4B mall's infrastructure.
Commissioners had banned the provision of any subsidies for the project six years ago. The vote that was delayed on Sept. 16 would have loosened the rules and allowed the county to divert roughly $60M toward road construction and infrastructure that would have otherwise been the responsibility of Triple Five, the Miami Herald reported.
The 2018 subsidy ban was backed by a lobbying group that included the owners of other regional malls, including the Dolphin Mall and Bayside Marketplace. The proposed legislation wouldn’t provide any direct subsidy for the American Dream Miami, but it would allow for county funds to be diverted to help its construction.
Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez is sponsoring the new resolution and also asked that it be deferred at the last commission meeting. The property site is in his district, and Bermudez argued that recent development in the area has necessitated the upgrading of the area’s roads, with or without the mall.
Doubters have questioned whether the mall would ever get built since at least 2021, after the pandemic forced retailers to pivot and led to more analysts predicting that indoor malls weren't aligned with today’s shopping habits. Investors in the bonds backed by the American Dream in New Jersey's sales taxes waited years before they received interest payments.
Triple Five said when it first proposed the project that it would be completed by 2025, but the developer has yet to begin the permitting process.
“International Atlantic is continuing its work to secure additional public infrastructure for the benefit of North West Miami-Dade by working closely with governmental officials,” the spokesperson said. “International Atlantic is confident that it will be successful in its current efforts.”
