American Dream, the vacant East Rutherford megamall that Christie once called “the ugliest damn building in New Jersey, and maybe America,” hasn’t signed investors almost a year after his administration agreed to public financing and a $390 million tax break, the biggest of its kind in state history.
The Republican governor had planned for the $3.8 billion mall to open in 2013. Instead, it will be at least two years before the first of an expected 35,000 employees clock in. The jobs will come too late to offset this year’s loss of as many as 10,000 positions in a wave of Atlantic City casino closings, including Revel, which closed this month. Without those projects, the state’s recovery continues to trail the nation’s.
Obviously Revel closing doesn't help the local Atlantic City job market, and a giant ugly empty building in East Rutherford isn't helping, but the idea that "those projects" would somehow turn around the economy is nuts.
But they're what he bet on, nonetheless. Double 0.