American Dream mall interest payments to be made after years of delays

Bondholders on roughly $287 million of municipal bonds sold to finance the construction of American Dream will see their interest payments after more than two years of waiting .

The bonds are backed by grants from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority. U.S Bank, which is making the payments, had to skip the payments after problems with the necessary documentation.

Bloomberg was the first to report the interest payment. According to Bloomberg, the grants are tied to sales tax revenue from the mall.

And, according to the Bloomberg report, state officials needed to certify a project cost statement, while the state Treasury needed to calculate the grant amount.

By Aug. 1 this year, the unpaid interest totaled to $46.4 million. The interest payments have to be completed before any payments can be made on the loan principal, according to a notice to bondholders issued last week by U.S Bank.

The mall's package of financing for the $5 billion, 3-million square-foot site also includes $800 million of municipal debt backed by payments in lieu of property taxes.

And it includes a $1.7 billion construction loan from 2017 that required Triple Five to put up a 49% stake in its two other major properties — Mall of America in Minnesota and Edmonton Mall in Alberta, Canada.

American Dream’s losses quadrupled in one year , said a securities filing released in September 2023, from $60 million to $245 million.

Come Sept. 3, U.S Bank will make $25.7 million of payments for past-due interest, according to the filing.

U.S Bank declined to comment for this story, while representatives from American Dream and the state Economic Development Authority could not be reached by email on Monday afternoon.

The payments come after the the Meadowlands site saw two straight quarters of higher earnings in its sales from retail, attractions, entertainment, dining and parking.

American Dream opened in 2019, shortly before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which temporarily forced its closure.

The mall features an indoor amusement park with roller coasters, an indoor water park, a 300-foot Ferris wheel , indoor miniature golf and ice skating, and the only year-round indoor ski and snowboard park in North America.

It has run into a litany of legal challenges and unpaid bills . The mall has also had its share of bad luck, like when a fire broke out at the indoor ski slope in 2021, and last year when a decorative helicopter at the indoor waterpark broke from the ceiling and crashed onto the floor below, injuring four guests.

Daniel Munoz covers business, consumer affairs, labor and the economy for NorthJersey.com and The Record.

Email: munozd@northjersey.com ; Twitter: @danielmunoz100 and Facebook

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: American Dream mall interest payments to be made after years of delays