The company that operates the mammoth Mall of America in Minnesota and the larger West Edmonton Mall in Canada are looking to erect an outsized shopping destination in warmer climes with a new proposal to build a combination mall and amusement park in the Miami area.
The Miami Herald reports that the Triple 5 Group, which is also in the middle of finishing up the long-delayed and passed-around American Dream center in New Jersey’s Meadowlands complex, is proposing a $4 billion mall project for the northwestern part of Miami-Dade County.
Like Triple Five’s New Jersey mall, this center would get branded with the “American Dream” name. And as has become common place for the world’s biggest malls, it will include attractions like submarines, indoor skiing and zoo animals.
Triple Five says the Miami project would be the largest property in its mall portfolio. That distinction currently belongs to the company’s mall in Edmonton, which is dubbed the “largest mall in North America” but which is actually smaller than the Centro Santa Fe in Mexico City.
The developer projects that the mall could pay for 25,000 construction jobs plus another 25,000 workers after it’s open, as the amusement and tourist attractions would require significant staffing.
But as the Herald points out, the jobs available in mall retail and amusement parks are traditionally among the lowest-paying.
Mayor Carlos Gimenez warns critics against brushing off these sorts of job.
“Everybody is focused on high-paying jobs. Not everybody is qualified for them,” he explains. “Twenty-thousand jobs are twenty-thousand jobs.”
by Chris Morran via Consumerist
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