American Dream: the new US$5 billion mega-mall built for the Instagram era
- About 30km from Manhattan, American Dream aims to reboot the shopping mall concept
- Offers indoor skiing, rides, retail, dining and entertainment with hotels also planned
Lindsey Vonn was among the luminaries on hand last month to christen “Big Snow”, North America’s first indoor ski facility, part of a new US$5 billion mega-mall in New Jersey.
For about US$30, consumers can ski for two hours on a 300-metre hill of man-made snow, the glare of the sun replaced by a metal ceiling in a venue that will be kept below freezing even in the dog days of August.
Big Snow is a flagship experience at the partially opened “American Dream”, an ambitious, long-in-the-making project about 30km from Manhattan that aims to reboot the shopping mall concept for the Instagram era.
The project, which garnered some US$1 billion in state and local incentives, is a bet that modern shoppers will be drawn to Vegas-like attractions plus elite shopping and dining opportunities and not fixate on the project’s carbon footprint, which is unknowable at this point.
After numerous delays and fitful construction that spanned more than a decade, American Dream began welcoming visitors in October, its gleaming white edifice beckoning drivers off the New Jersey highway.
