Although those two malls have continued to operate successfully for decades, Triple Five itself hasn’t been able to replicate its winning formula by opening a new megamall anywhere else in North America — though not for a lack of trying.
Not long before Christie unveiled the Ghermezians as the new developers for the American Dream project in New Jersey, a property the company had picked for a project it called the Great Mall of Las Vegas was lost to foreclosure.
In the 1980s, Triple Five also unsuccessfully pursued a mall project called Fantasyland in Niagara Falls, NY. And about 20 years ago, the company pitched a mall development in Silver Spring, MD, that was also never built. It, too, was also called American Dream by the Ghermezians.
At the time, there were a lot of vacant buildings in Silver Spring, said Doug Duncan, the former county executive for Montgomery County, MD, which is a suburb of Washington, D.C. Triple Five was offering to fix the economic-development problem with one major project.
"One major project" surrounded by acres of parking lot isn't an economic development solution. There aren't any spillovers.