melbet Will American Dream Miami lose part of its mega-mall site? Big project now in court

Updated:2024-10-14 02:59    Views:111

A rendering of the indoor amusement park for American Dream Miami, a retail theme park planned in Miami-Dade County with a goal of attracting 30 million visitors a year. Triple Five

After years of delays, the American Dream Miami mega-mall project now faces a potentially catastrophic setback: the loss of a big chunk of its development site.

A recent lawsuit filed earlier this month reveals the developer behind the project, Triple Five, is fighting to retain control of a third of its 175-acre development site outside Hialeah.

The dispute dates back to 2014, when Graham Companies, a top local developer out of Miami Lakes, agreed to sell Triple Five a 63-acre parcel for the project at an undisclosed price.

That land deal never closed, according to the recent lawsuit, but Triple Five had retained control of the real estate without objection from Graham executives by paying $11 million in extension fees to maintain the agreement.

Now facing a cutoff date for those extensions after 10 years, Triple Five is asking a judge to intervene to keep the contract alive.

READ MORE: America’s largest mall has been stalled for years. Could Miami-Dade help revive it?

A Triple Five entity sued Graham in Miami-Dade Circuit Court on Sept. 6, warning of a “contested and difficult divorce” if it can’t get another extension on its land deal without the financial penalties Triple Five claims Graham is demanding.

If a judge sides with Graham, Triple Five may no longer have the full development site needed for the 6-million-square-foot mall complex. The suit states Graham considered the purchase deal terminated on Sept. 6.

American Dream Miami alliance is now heading to court

At issue are conditions Graham placed on the sales deal that require Triple Five to complete multiple pre-development steps before it can purchase the land.

The provisions appear designed to protect Graham from giving up land near its other valuable holdings that would then sit vacant under a new owner. The requirements aren’t detailed in the suit, but Triple Five mentions road construction and sewage connections as actions it hasn’t completed but is pursuing.

With the pre-development work uncompleted, Triple Five is unable to purchase the 63-acre site under the terms of the 2014 deal.

The previously undisclosed dispute involves two development powerhouses who united a decade ago to try and bring Miami-Dade what would be the largest mall in America. Triple Five, the family-owned Mall of America owner out of Canada, and Graham, the family-owned developer behind the creation of Miami Lakes, won county approval in 2018 for a pair of projects where Florida’s Turnpike meets Interstate 75.

A rendering of the American Dream Miami by Triple Five. The American Dream Miami mega-mall received the initial go-ahead from Miami-Dade commissioners in May 2018 but development has stalled after that. Triple Five

The best known portion was for American Dream Miami, a retail theme park so large it has room for an indoor ski slope and a submarine lake. Next door, Graham planned a mix of residential and commercial buildings aimed at capturing spillover activity from American Dream, which projected 30 million visitors a year.

READ MORE: This mall will be so ginormous that it comes with its own suburb

While once allied, the cooperation between the two developers has slid into friction.

“We are very disappointed with the lawsuit but confident about the outcome,” Stuart Wylie, president and CEO of Graham, said in a statement. In its own statement, Triple Five said it “is hopeful that the matter will be resolved amicably.”

Both projects remain years behind schedule, with Graham initially planning to start construction in 2018 and Triple Five planning to have American Dream open by 2025 and employing 5,000 people by next year.

In crafting the lawsuit, Triple Five claimed to share private conversations with Graham suggesting the mixed-use complex of new homes and places to shop may wind up being a warehouse complex.

“Graham has done nothing to advance its retail, business park, and apartment project,” Triple Five said in the lawsuit filed by its Miami-Dade subsidiary, International Atlantic. “Graham has told the Purchaser it would like to switch to industrial use.”

A Graham lawyer, Scott Hiaasen of Coffey Burlington, denied the allegation.

“The Graham Companies are not part of the development of the mall,” Hiaasen, a former Miami Herald reporter, said in a statement. “Their plans for their own property have not changed, and the allegations to the contrary in the lawsuit are false.”

Graham has not filed its response to the lawsuit, leaving Triple Five’s rendition of the facts the only source of information for the behind-the-scenes dispute.

Triple Five and Graham Companies joined forces for a mega-mall. Now they’re fighting

The suit says Triple Five is out of regular extension options but claims the original contract entitles the developer to more time because of delays from the 2020 COVID crisis that upended the economy and development schedules.

READ MORE: Vote delayed on potential subsidy boost for stalled American Dream Miami mega-mall

Triple Five also argues that Graham cited COVID in winning regulatory extensions from Miami-Dade County for its project and that the agreement on the 63-acre parcel should grant Triple Five the same leeway in its purchase deal.

An email quoted in the lawsuit suggests Graham is open to allowing the deal to stay alive, but only if Triple Five agrees to a price matching real estate values that have soared over the last 10 years – as well as prove it’s still on track to start construction.

“You continued to insist that we close on the sale of the property at the current price,” an unnamed Graham lawyer wrote in an email to a Triple Five counterpart on April 4, according to the suit. “We told you the same thing we have said for quite a while. We are willing to discuss an extension provided that ... there was a good chance that you would be able to satisfy the conditions to closing within a reasonable period [and] the purchase price would become the market value of the property [and] additional option extension fees would be required.”

An artist’s rendering of a ski slope planned for a corner of American Dream Miami, a stalled project in Northwest Miami-Dade County.

The court fight lands in the middle of Triple Five’s effort to secure subsidies from Miami-Dade to revive the project. County commissioners this week delayed a vote on legislation lifting a subsidy ban that rival malls lobbied to impose on American Dream as part of the county’s 2018 approval of the project.

Triple Five has already lobbied Florida to fund an interchange near the mega-mall site that would need to be constructed for the project to go forward. The company wants millions of dollars in county funds to subsidize other infrastructure that Triple Five would otherwise have to pay for as part of its 2018 agreement.

Triple Five cites the subsidy push as an example of pre-development work that is helping Graham, too. Because the American Dream site is next door to the Graham site, the roads and other infrastructure Triple Five needs would benefit both projects, according to the lawsuit.

“The Purchaser is in the process of securing hundreds of millions of dollars of governmental funding for highway, road, and water and sewer infrastructure … which will substantially enhance the use and value of the Graham Development Property,” the lawsuit said.

Graham’s “attitude is to take the money and run,” the lawsuit said, “leaving the Purchaser with nothing but losses after years of investments and work.”

This story was originally published September 20melbet, 2024, 2:10 PM.

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