One of the longest and most expensive sagas in world ski area development appears to be back on track following the intervention of a US billionaire.

Local journalist John Brennan of The Record newspaper (www.northjersey.com), who has followed the development of Xanadu for many years, has reported that billionaire Steve Ross has been promoting the mall, now re-branded ‘Meadowlands’ at a convention in Las Vegas. Ross is expected to announce he has secured the $500m plus required to finally complete the development and that the grand opening could now take place in 2011.

The giant Xanadu mall in New Jersey, USA, is home to North America’s first indoor snow centre. The complex was largely completed a year ago with snow produced on the indoor slope last summer, but has been effectively mothballed for the past nine months due to financial problems.

Xanadu’s history dates back more than eight years when, after protracted lobbying and subsequent legal battles, the now defunct Mills Corporation set out to build the mega-mall. The company had already built Spain’s Xanadu indoor snow centre at Madrid, then operated by Intrawest and managed dozens of malls across the US.

However the economic downturn and spiralling construction costs heading towards $2.3 billion ultimately resulted in the demise of the Mills Corporation and the project being taken over by a corporation called Colony Capital.

In his report Brennan notes that the mall’s revamped website still features a controversial giant 90m high big wheel filled with the Pepsi logo but that the ski slope building is shown in silver – it may one day be covered by a giant logo from a ski related business.

www.visitmeadowlands.com