There have been heaps of whispers about a New Jersey Meadowlands wave pool for one full decade now. And this year the developers, American Dream, announced they would be including a 1.5-acre wave pool.

The surf pool is just one component of a $5billion mega-mall that will be 45% retail shops and 55% amusement park. American Wave Machines’ PerfectSwell tech will work alongside a full-size hockey rink, indoor snowpark, rollercoaster, aquarium, Ferris wheel and more.

The Meadowlands sits just west of New York City. Likewise, the site has endured the urban abuse that comes with being smack dab in the center of 20 million people. Development of the area, particularly with this project, has been knotted with more plot twists than a Sopranos season finale.

First proposed in 2003 by Mills Corp, the company went into bankruptcy five years later. Then Colony Capital stepped in until they ran out of funds for the (then) $3.7billion project and in 2009 left. Enter Canadian developer Triple Five. These are the folks behind the Mall of America in Edmonton Canada, home to the totally not-surfable Blue Thunder wave pool. (The full history of the project sans wave pool is available here.)

Triple Five said the water park portion of the development is 70% complete. Estimates for the first opening dates are March 2020 (pushed back from October 2019) according to NJ.com. There are no official statements as to whether the AWM pool is part of this launch.

In an online interview Bruce McFarland, head honcho at American Wave Machines, confirmed last April that they would be powering the wave pool at the Meadowlands.

“We’ve actually got a few different locations where they’ll be implementing our wave technology within the next year,” McFarland told Surfer Magazine. “One of them is the American Dream development in New Jersey, just outside New York City. The facility in New Jersey is going to be in a more traditionally-shaped wave pool because it was actually designed quite a while ago. It’s a smaller space and so there will be shorter rides, but it’s still going to be very similar to BSR in terms of the surf performance you’re able to get out of it.”

It’s a little confusing to give an exact opening date. AWM has not issued a press release and the American Dream project is so huge, that it has to be done in stages, or “chapters” according to their communications department. The construction company, said they are treating it like several smaller, multi-million dollar projects.

“We basically had nine $200-million programs that happened to be in construction within a five-minute walk of each other,” American Dream operation manager Steve Schmalz told ENR.com. “The worksite is a campus.”

For American Wave Machines this is an exciting time (they have several projects in the works globally.) While their much-loved wave pool at BSR Surf Resort in Waco has a dedicated following, the Meadowlands will be more accessible than their Texas wave pool.

“The exciting thing for us is the location because of the tens of millions of people in the surrounding area,” said McFarland. “It’s going to be an enormous indoor facility, pretty much dwarfing any other indoor facilities you can think of, and it will have warm water and warm air all year round.”

You can be the first to know when tickets go on sale by clicking through this link here. We will keep you updated as news develops.