Let’s get this out of the way: I absolutely love malls in the kind of way you’d only understand if you were a Jersey teen before the internet took over.
Malls are my happy place. An iced coffee in my hand, looking through the sale section of a Nordstrom, is one of my favorite ways to de-stress.
So when I say I absolutely hated the American Dream in East Rutherford, it’s not coming from a place of disdain for the American mall. No, I hate it because it could have been so much, and yet gives so little.
My thoughts have nothing to do with the 20-year history of waste, delays and general business failures that went into the mall. They have everything to do with the fact that American Dream fails at being a good mall.
I’d taken President’s Day off to hang out with my boyfriend, and going to the mall to get some clothes for an upcoming trip we have planned seemed like fun.
The mall sort of opened in 2019, when a supremely boring-looking ice rink and the Nickelodeon theme park opened. And then, you know, the pandemic hit and the rest of the mall was stuck in limbo until a state-ordered closure on malls was lifted in late 2020.
And yet, in February 2022, the mall still doesn’t feel totally open.
It sort of isn’t: huge chunks of retail space remain unopened, covered by giant murals, making walking through the hulking empty spaces between stores feel like an airport. A mall spokesperson said the retail space is about 80% leased but did not say how many of those lessees had not yet opened (there were plenty of “coming soon!” signs).
Hyped up as retail and entertainment in one, the mall falls short on both. If you’re looking for the mall experience, a little shopping, a little snacking, any of New Jersey’s other two dozen malls would far better suit your needs. And if you want the entertainment, you can find it better, cheaper, and actually open elsewhere.
Huge gaps between stores made maps all the more necessary, but the touch-screen digital maps didn’t work half the time, and there were no old-school, static map kiosks. Paper maps are available at guest service locations, which I don’t remember seeing. A mall spokesperson said they are “constantly evaluating its technology and implementing new techniques to improve the experience for our guests” when asked about the glitchy maps.
The stores that are open don’t feel special enough to warrant a trip to the Meadowlands. They’re generally the typical mall brands, like a Uniqulo or an Old Navy, that you could find just as easily at the Menlo Park Mall (my favorite hang-out mall). Plus this isn’t an outlet mall, unlike the not-too-far-away Jersey Gardens (my favorite shopping mall), where suffering through long lines and a crappy parking lot is worth it for great deals.
Even The Avenue, American Dream’s attempt to compete with Fifth Avenue for luxury tourist dollars, was mostly empty. Not enough stores to draw in tourists, and not enough windows for window shopping. (The Mall At Short Hills can’t be topped in this category.)
And the food options? Even worse.
There was virtually no seating at the Coca-Cola food court. How could a mall that touted its culinary offerings have almost no tables to eat them at? I think my high school cafeteria was bigger than this. A mall spokesperson told me later there would have been more seating near the “dining patio” but there was no signage pointing to it. There are also sit-down restaurants, but where? I don’t know. Maps didn’t work.
It was at this point in our day that I understood why toddlers absolutely lose their cool in malls. I was hungry. I was tired. Katy Perry was blasting way too loudly. I was disappointed. We had not passed a single place to get an iced coffee.
“Maybe it’ll be better when everything is open,” I said to my boyfriend once we finally found a table and something to eat. “More stuff, more options.”
“It’ll be exactly the same but way more people,” he said, clearly not taking the mall’s shortcomings as personally as I was. He’s probably right.
The thing about the American Dream is that it’s not trying to be the typical mall — it wants to be more than that, to be an experience, a place where you go for entertainment and attractions.
And for some families, that might be enough of a draw to pack the kids up in the car and pay the $3 parking (which jumps to $30 to $50 on event days if you stay longer than four hours). The Lego Discovery Center was sold out around noon on President’s Day, and there seemed to be long lines for both the Sea Life Aquarium and Tilt Museum. The Angry Birds mini-golf course, which we got a peek at heading to the car, also looked like it had solid attendance.
The Nickelodeon Universe and DreamWorks water park are not integrated into the mall, unlike the theme park that sits in the middle of the Mall of America, creating a weird division between bad shopping experience and mediocre amusement area. And for this upcoming weekend, it would be cheaper to skate at Rockefeller Center than it would be to go to The Rink at American Dream.
Big SNOW, the indoor ski slope, is an objectively awesome idea, especially since it’s the first of its kind in the western hemisphere, but it’s closed indefinitely, after a September electrical fire.
Overall, the entertainment offerings are stand-alone experiences, something you need to buy a pricey ticket for and plan your day around. I wish I could drop $10 and ride a single roller coaster in between grabbing a pair of jeans at CottonOn and grabbing a Wetzels Pretzel.
Developer Triple Five, which also owns Mall of America, swears American Dream will be a success and it’s doing fine financially — despite nearly zeroing out its reserves to pay the last bond payment — but financial experts have previously told NJ Advance Media that doesn’t seem to be the case.
I wanted to love this mall. I wanted to take my out-of-town cousins when they come to visit, and to tell everyone who grumbled about it for years, “No! It’s a great mall! You’ll love it!”
But the haters were right. The American Dream stinks.
Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a subscription.
Katie Kausch may be reached at kkausch@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.