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CRDA approves demolition of A.C. post office
By DONALD WITTKOWSKI Staff Writer, (609) 272-7258
Published: Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Updated: Wednesday, July 19, 2006
ATLANTIC CITY — A state development agency on Tuesday approved plans to demolish Atlantic City's 70-year-old post office building and give the adjacent Sands Casino Hotel first rights to acquire the site.
The vote by the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority continues a 10-year saga to tear down the antiquated post office and complete the widening of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard into a four-lane corridor from Route 30 to Pacific Avenue.
“It should have been done quite a while back,” longtime Atlantic City resident William Cheatham told CRDA board members. “I hear all these plans, but I don't see anything yet.”
Under the latest plan, the CRDA will use $10.6 million in funding from the Sands to buy the building from the U.S. Postal Service, demolish the structure and widen the block of King Boulevard between Atlantic and Pacific avenues.
In return, the Sands will be given the post office site if it undertakes a hotel expansion or a retail-entertainment project approved by the CRDA. The Sands also would have the option of buying the property if it does not build an expansion project.
The U.S. Postal Service will be allowed to operate the old post office for two more years while it searches for a new location. There are plans to keep the post office in Atlantic City, but its operations would be split into two different sites — one for retail and the other for distribution.
Of main interest to the public is the retail center, where customers can buy stamps and drop off or pick up their mail and packages. Negotiations are under way to place the retail center in a new downtown office complex at Indiana and Atlantic avenues under development by Sun National Bank, CRDA officials said.
Distribution operations for the post office may be relocated to the former IGA supermarket site at the foot of Route 30 on the northern fringe of town, although those plans are less certain. The distribution center will serve as a base for collecting, sorting and delivering the mail.
Demolition of the old post office would finally create the room to widen the narrow, congested stretch of King Boulevard between Atlantic and Pacific avenues. Other sections of the boulevard have been turned in a four-lane corridor linking the downtown area with the Route 30 entryway.
At the urging of preservationists, the Sands had once considered saving a portion of the post office and incorporating it in a hotel expansion project, but those plans seemingly have died in the new CRDA development agreement.
“There isn't a requirement for preservation,” said Nancy K. Wattson, the CRDA's chief financial officer.
Delays with the Sands' expansion project opened the door for casino rival Harrah's Entertainment Inc. to try to acquire the post office site in negotiations with the CRDA's former administration. Harrah's, however, withdrew at the urging of the authority's new executive director, Thomas D. Carver.
“They would have effectively prevented the Sands from completing its expansion plans,” Wattson said. “But Harrah's has very graciously exited from the negotiations at Tom Carver's request.”
The CRDA oversees the spending of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from Atlantic City's 12 casinos for housing projects and economic development. Casinos are required to contribute 1.25 percent of their gross annual revenue to the CRDA, but in some cases are allowed to use a portion of the funding for their own expansion projects.
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