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Startup Casino Company Bets on Atlantic City
Revel Entertainment plans a resort that would stand taller than the Borgata
Scott Goldstein
Trenton Bureau
5/7/2007
ATLANTIC CITY - A newly formed company says it plans to build a “spectacular” casino resort on the boardwalk that will be the tallest in Atlantic City and cost considerably more than the $1.1 billion it took to build the town’s newest resort, The Borgata Casino Hotel & Spa.
This was the most exciting news to come out of last week’s East Coast Gaming Conference in Atlantic City, a convention of gaming executives. One of them, Kevin DeSanctis, CEO of Revel Entertainment Group LLC—the Atlantic City-based startup firm with big plans—carefully revealed few details about his company’s property that sits between the Showboat Casino Hotel and the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort.
The new resort is scheduled to open in 2011 and is expected to have a hotel tower that stands at least 600 feet high and contains 2,000 rooms, he said. That would make it taller than either the Borgata or the new Harrah’s Marina tower currently under construction.
“We don’t know yet what it will cost,” DeSanctis said. “Two billion dollars is a reasonable number, but we hope it will be less.”
DeSanctis said he prefers not to reveal too much information about his Atlantic City plans because if he does, when the property opens it will inevitably fail to look like what people have come to expect.
“We know exactly what we want to create to bring a new dynamic [to Atlantic City], and we selected a design team that we believe can carry it out,” DeSanctis said.
His company hired Tishman Construction Corp. to serve as construction manager. New York City-based Tishman’s portfolio includes the Borgata and Epcot Center in Walt Disney World. Handling the architectural design and interior is Arquitectonica, a Miami-based firm that specializes in postmodern architecture. Arquitectonica has designed the Four Seasons Resort in Dubai, City of Dreams in Macau and Canyon Ranch Resort in Miami.
“The design team he announced indicates to me that this will not be another rectangular box,” said Joe Weinert, vice president of Spectrum Gaming Group, a Princeton-based firm that tracks trends in the gaming industry. “This is something that will get noticed in Atlantic City and something Atlantic City will be noticed for.”
Revel Entertainment is not the only company planning a 2011 casino opening on Atlantic City’s boardwalk. Las Vegas-based Pinnacle Entertainment Inc. said last year that it will implode the shuttered Sands and replace it with a much bigger hotel-casino that is expected to cost $1.5 billion or more.
“It won’t be a race to open first,” Weinert said. “But they don’t want to open too close together, either. Each one wants to get the maximum benefit of being the new casino.”
DeSanctis said Revel plans to create an attraction on the beach, perhaps more than just the nightclubs on the sand some casino operators have already opened. The property “has the best beach in Atlantic City and it would be foolish not to aim for a little bit more of a resort feel,” DeSanctis said. The property’s beachfront is 1,000 feet long, the company says.
Like the Borgata, the facility will have a spa, DeSanctis said. He expects the project to occupy 5 million square feet and construction to begin next year.
Revel Entertainment is partnering to build the casino-hotel with a subsidiary of Morgan Stanley, which acquired the 20-acre property last year for $73 million.
Revel’s casino-hotel will certainly cost more than the Borgata, Atlantic City’s youngest casino property, which cost $1.1 billion in 2003, DeSanctis said. The Borgata debuted with 2,002 hotel rooms, 4,800 employees, and is considered the premier casino-hotel in the resort city.
DeSanctis formed Revel Entertainment last year after he resigned as president of Penn National Gaming, a Wyomissing, Pa.-based company that owns 12 casinos in the United States. Before that, he was COO of Sun International Hotels, with responsibilities including casinos in Connecticut and the Bahamas. At one point, he served as president of Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City.
“Kevin [DeSanctis] wants to build something that will become an architectural icon in Atlantic City and one that will be instant eye candy for anybody entering the city from any point,” Weinert said. “I suspect it will be something very modern and very distinctive.”
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