The owner of the American Dream super-mall in New Jersey is seeking a four-year extension to repay $1.7 billion in construction financing after project holdups and pandemic lockdowns kept shoppers away, Bloomberg News reported. Triple Five Group, American Dream’s owner, is asking a group of lenders led by JPMorgan Chase & Co. for more time to repay loans made in 2017. The 2017 debt included a $1.2 billion senior loan and a $475 million mezzanine loan that was supposed to be repaid last year. The talks are part of a larger effort to restructure the mall’s $3 billion in debt and avoid bankruptcy for the massive shopping and entertainment complex in New Jersey’s Meadowlands, the people said. The mall also has $1.1 billion in municipal bonds that are senior in repayment rank to the construction financing. Triple Five said last week that the mall nearly depleted a reserve account to make a $9.3 million interest payment on a municipal bond supported by sales tax receipts.
