Miami-Dade County commissioners voted unanimously on first reading to slash the minimum site size required for its mega-scale retail zoning designation by 40 percent, a move aimed at unlocking new development even as the county's flagship project under that same zoning category, the long-stalled American Dream Miami mega-mall, still has not broken ground after more than a decade of planning.
The proposed ordinance, sponsored by Commissioner Oliver G. Gilbert III, would lower the minimum footprint required for Retail Entertainment District Planned Area Development, or REDPAD, zoning from 50 acres to 30 acres, according to The Real Deal. Gilbert has said the change would allow smaller sites to qualify while still requiring projects to occupy at least 30 contiguous acres, per a memo cited in the outlet's reporting. The measure passed its first reading unanimously and is headed to a second reading and public hearing at the commission's meeting on October 20.
Before it reaches the full commission for that final vote, the ordinance was also referred to the county's Infrastructure, Innovation & Technology Committee, which has a hearing scheduled for November 12, according to the Miami-Dade County Board of County Commissioners. If the ordinance is approved and not vetoed by the mayor, it would take effect 10 days after enactment. The mayor retains the option to veto the measure, in which case the commission would need to override that veto for the lower threshold to become law.
Why the 50-Acre Rule Existed in the First Place
Miami-Dade created the REDPAD zoning category in 2017 specifically to encourage large-scale retail and entertainment projects, setting the minimum site size at 50 acres in that year's zoning code, per The Real Deal's reporting. The same 2017 measure, Ordinance No. 17-43, set a much lower 10-acre minimum for a companion category known as the Employment Center Planned Area Development district, according to the county commission's own records — underscoring just how much higher the bar was set for retail mega-projects compared with other special commercial zones. The county's development master plan, notably, does not itself require any minimum acreage for retail entertainment districts; the 50-acre floor was a product of the zoning code rather than the broader planning document.
That high threshold was built around one project in particular. American Dream Miami, pitched more than a decade ago by an affiliate of the Triple Five Group, sits on 175 acres near the intersection of Interstate 75 and Florida's Turnpike in northwest Miami-Dade. Triple Five, led by cousins Paul and Don Ghermezian, also owns Mall of America in Minnesota and the American Dream megamall in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The developers first approached the Graham family, which owned a large adjacent parcel, back in 2013, and the Miami project was formally proposed in 2015.
A Decade of Land Deals, Lawsuits and Missed Deadlines
Assembling the site took years and multiple separate transactions. Triple Five paid $12.3 million for 82 acres of state-owned land in 2015, then $10.8 million for another 15 acres from Genesis Partner Development Enterprises in 2017, and later completed a land swap with Graham Companies parcels valued at $12.7 million each in 2020. The project had originally been envisioned at 6.2 million square feet, with 3.5 million square feet of retail and 1.5 million square feet of entertainment, including a 16-story indoor ski slope, a 20-slide water park, a submarine lake and 2,000 hotel rooms meant to draw 30 million visitors a year, according to The Real Deal's earlier reporting.
Even after the county approved retail entertainment zoning for the site in 2018, construction never started. Miami-Dade sued the Triple Five affiliate in 2025 over missed deadlines, seeking $5 million in damages and alleging the developer had failed to obtain required development permits within the agreed timeframe. That lawsuit followed an even larger filing in April of that year — a 149-page complaint alleging the developer had missed a December 2023 deadline to begin vertical construction and had failed to deliver on promises of 7,500 construction jobs and 15,000 permanent jobs, according to the South Florida Business Journal. The county dismissed its $5 million suit four months after filing it, and the two sides reached a settlement requiring Triple Five to pay $5 million plus interest in economic development payments spread over five years, with full payment due by September 2029. Under the settlement, Triple Five now has until 2045 to complete American Dream Miami.
A spokesperson and attorney for American Dream Miami did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did a spokesperson for the sponsoring commissioner, The Real Deal reported.
Land Disputes and a Subsidy Ban Have Compounded the Delays
The county's lawsuits were not the only legal headache. In September 2024, Triple Five subsidiary International Atlantic LLC sued the Graham Companies in Miami-Dade Circuit Court to force the closing of a separate 63-acre land purchase, after paying more than $11 million in option and extension fees under a 2014 agreement that had expired without closing, according to Bisnow. The Graham Companies separately secured county approval in 2018 for an adjacent 340-acre project of their own, planned for 1 million square feet of retail, 3 million square feet of business park space and 2,000 multifamily units, per county planning documents.
Money has also been a sticking point. When Miami-Dade approved REDPAD zoning in 2018, it included a resolution banning county subsidies for American Dream Miami after lobbying from rival mall owners, according to WLRN. Commissioners debated modifying or lifting that ban in 2024 and 2025 to help cover an estimated $350 million in road and infrastructure improvements the project would require. Traffic studies for the 175-acre site estimated full build-out would generate roughly 70,000 daily vehicle trips along I-75 and Florida's Turnpike, comparable to volumes on some of the busiest stretches of the Dolphin Expressway, per a video report from Local 10 News.
Original economic impact studies from the 2017-2018 approval process had projected 32,000 construction jobs, up to 25,000 total direct and indirect permanent jobs, and $230 million in annual local tax revenue, according to Construction Dive. Triple Five's track record elsewhere offers a mixed point of comparison: its American Dream megamall in East Rutherford, New Jersey, faced nearly 20 years of delays before opening in 2019, and began repaying $287 million to bondholders in late 2024 as leasing reached 87 percent — though local New Jersey mayors threatened legal action in August over delinquent municipal payments, according to Modern Retail.
American Dream Miami remains, for now, a stalled $4 billion mega-mall project still holding its REDPAD designation. With the county now moving to cut the zoning threshold nearly in half, officials appear to be acknowledging that suitable 50-acre-plus parcels inside the urban development boundary are increasingly hard to come by — even as the project that originally justified the higher bar continues to sit undeveloped.
