EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ-Just off Exit 16W on the New Jersey Turnpike, approaching the swamps and marshes of the Meadowlands, is the site once known as “the ugliest building in New Jersey,” the hulking former-Xanadu project. Come 2014, Triple Five Corp. will redevelop the three-million-square-foot structure into the “American Dream,” a $1.5 billion megamall including luxury retail, an indoor water park, restaurants, a Ferris wheel, a movie theater and North America’s first indoor ski slope.

But as malls become more competitive to maintain and attract new customers, developers are creating shopping centers that often mimic cities and town centers, says FTI Consulting Inc., in its latest retail real estate outlook for New York and New Jersey. “American Dream is sort of a suburban Times Square,” says Glenn Brill, managing director of real estate solutions at FTI Consulting. He tells GlobeSt.com that the Meadowlands will emerge not only as a retail center, but as a year-round destination. “It’s behind the whole concept about how the mall replaced Main Street. Historically, it did to a certain degree, but malls didn’t always provide the sense of experience that a real civic environment can. It is a concept they are trying to reinvigorate here."

Brill, who previously consulted for the Mills Corp. when the firm was developing Xanadu, says the American Dream project is targeting a young demographic--ages 18 to 34--as an attempt to attract locals as well as tourists with entertainment and shopping all-in-one place. “There is a huge local market here and they need to generate repeat businesses,” Brill says. “If you are offering something really beyond shopping, people will go there because there is a programming component. All of that is designed to make it into a destination unlike any other. To some extent, it is turning the consumer experience into a pop culture experience.”