The company that owns and runs the largest mall in America wants to build an even bigger one in northwestern Miami-Dade, a roughly 200-acre entertainment complex with submarines, a Legoland, sea lions and an artificial ski slope.
Backed by the owner of Minnesota’s Mall of America, American Dream Miami is proposed for land at the intersection of Florida’s Turnpike and Interstate 75 near Miami Lakes. It’s projected to cost as much as $4 billion to build and employ 25,000 people once opened, more than enough to give it Miami-Dade’s largest private-sector payroll.
It also would bring the largest mall in the United States to what’s now pastureland in Miami’s congested suburbs, using vacant real estate flanked by two of the region’s busiest highways.