Mega-mall fulfilling impossible dream.

Steel has been secured and construction is finally due to begin in the next few months on the first phase of Destiny USA, a 850,000 s/f mixed use space green mega mall, a project that when complete could attain the seemingly impossible ideal of running on absolutely no oil or fossil fuel emissions.

The project is the baby of shopping mall maven Bob Congel, founder of Pyramid Corporation and Destiny USA based in Syracuse New York. The first phase of the project should run upwards of $300,000 million dollars and is expected to be completed within 18 months of the start of construction.

Second and third phases in the future will include the development of a 4.5 million s/f entertainment complex including an aquarium, a hotel, an indoor recreation of the Erie Canal, a performing arts center, a stadium, an artificial lake and three golf courses. The entire project could cost $20 billion.

The developers project the center could bring 120,000 new jobs and tourist dollars to the area which has been slammed by industry's pulling away from the town, said David Aitken, member of the Destiny USA Team.

Designs for the project have been hashed out since early 2005, with skeptics wary about whether the mall will be able to pay for itself, and architects seeming to pass through a revolving door.

Yet the projects are founded on the dreams of an idealist, backed by a troupe of professionals who believe in his ideology.

"As a company, we work for Bob Congel who believes in the commercialization of renewable energy technologies," Aitken said. "Destiny USA will attract a lot of people, and Congel views it as our responsibility to citizens to prove that we can do something like this on a large scale." The building will strive for the highest rating by the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, according to Aitken. Design elements will include a 45-megawatt biodiesel fuel run power plant and photovoltaic technology.

The complex will be sculpted out of 3000 tons of coal ash in lieu of Portland Cement, which would reduce greenhouse gasses by 3,000 tons. Even the CATS and tractors used during construction will run on biodiesel fuel. The entire project is partly a "case study," according to Aitken, so high costs are figured in the learning curve.

"There is recognition within the industry that some green features have a higher upstart cost," Aitken said.

"To those that are building that way it makes good economic sense to build green. The goal is that you prove there are both operating efficiencies and the net benefit of increased visiting that will generate higher sales."

Their grandiose goal for the project is to transform the way large scale complexes are built and reduce the country's dependency on fossil fuels. More immediately, Congel hopes to transform a small town.

"The goal is to transition from a shopping center to an around the clock destination," Aitken said.