• by Thom Forbes  @tforbes, May 11, 2011

Across the Hudson River and within sight of Manhattan's "canyons measureless to man," as Samuel Taylor Coleridge envisioned it, lies a patch of land scarred by an eyesore of am ambitious shopping complex that, until last week, was known as Xanadu. With the infusion of $1 billion in capital, and the infectious "can-do" gigantism of a family of Canadian Iranian immigrants who have developed Mall of America and the even larger West Edmonton Mall in Alberta, it is being "rebranded" for the Digital Age as American Dream@Meadowlands.

The redubbing of the heretofore disastrous undertaking, which was announced by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie last week, is the subject of some scrutiny by the New York Times' real estate writer Terry Pristin this morning.

Most of the Ghermezian family's projects are "wildly successful," Green Street Advisors senior retail real estate analyst Jim Sullivan tells him. "They draw a lot of people, and retailers want to be where the people are." But, as Pristin details, it does not have an "unblemished track record." Several projects, notably in Las Vegas, have been hit hard by the recession and some underhanded dealing.

The New Jersey complex, originally planned to debut in 2007, is now scheduled to open by 2013 -- just in time to shine when the eyes of the cosmos are upon the Meadowlands, which is slated to host the 2014 Super Bowl.

"With a more attractive design plan, a new name and timeline for completion, this project is getting a much-needed make-over, while enhancing New Jersey's reputation as a vibrant tourism destination," Christie said in a statement last week. He had announced a preliminary deal with Triple Five last year, Reuters reports.

Triple Five is named for three generations of Ghermezians and the five founders, four brothers -- Eskander, Nader, Raphael and Bahman -- and their father, Jacob, who died in 2000, Pristin reports. Before turning to real estate, the family, which has been in Canada since the 1960s, was successful in the rug and oil business. Current interests include mining and biotech.

Mall of America is the most visited shopping center in the country and Pristin writes that "New Jersey officials are pinning a lot of hopes that a similar formula will work at American Dream, the long-dormant 2.4-million-square-foot complex with a 600-foot indoor ski slope and a much-derided exterior design that is on state-owned land."

The state is, in fact, offering $200 million in economic development aid funded by sales tax revenue from the complex. Details are sketchy and elected officials have already turned the announcement into a political football, of course.

Writing on public radio station WNYC's website, Bob Hennelly reports that Democratic State Sen. Loretta Weinberg wants a fuller accounting of the deal and a vetting of its true costs. "We ought to engage state taxpayers and local residents in a discussion of the merits and pitfalls of expanding Xanadu's footprint, and investing more funds into an already costly development," she says.

But, as Hennelly points out in his lead, the mall's exterior is "violently ugly and it is built on state land so close to the Big Apple that its value is through the roof." Sounds like just the sort of situation that can only be cleaned up by a master salesman. And that, reports Hennelly, is exactly what Nader Ghermezian -- "the avuncular chairman of Triple Five now in his 70s" -- turned out to be as he "drew reporters in with a halting, dramatic voice."

"Today we are proud to announce that we will be developing the world's largest and most comprehensive retail, entertainment, amusement, recreation and tourism project ever built," he said. "This project, by measurement, bar none does not exist anywhere."

Not every scribe thinks the project -- or even the new name -- is appropriate, for sure. [Newark Star-] Ledger Live video webcast host Brian Donohue is one doubter. He checks out The Epic of America from the nearby -- but at least a century removed from the Mallization of America -- library in Perth Amboy. Its author, James Truslow Adams, coined the phrase "American Dream" in the Depression-era book, and Donohue somewhat tediously reads from it ("it is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of a social order in which each man and each woman ...") to establish that in 80 years the American Dream has gone from a "beautiful egalitarian ideal ... to a big place with an indoor ski [slope] and the biggest candy story on earth."

Given all the woes suffer by the middle class today, Donohue says that the renaming of the mall-to-be amounts to "blasphemy."

He might just as easily quoted Coleridge: "And all should cry, Beware! Beware!"