WAYNE PARRY
ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey: Will the fourth time be the charm for Atlantic City’s former Atlantic Club casino? Florida real estate company TJM Properties said October 1 it sold the former casino to Colosseo Atlantic City Inc., a New York investment and construction firm. The purchase price for the Boardwalk property, which has been shuttered since January 2014, was not revealed.
Colosseo president Rocco Sebastiani said he plans to run the building as a non-gambling hotel. “We’re going to renovate the property and reopen it as an 800-room hotel with new retail and new food and beverage offerings,” he told The Associated Press. Sebastiani said he was drawn to “the challenge” of turning around the historic property. “It’s got a lot of renovating that needs to be done; that’s what we do,” he said. “We buy assets that need a lot of work and bring them up to the market.”
The company does not have, nor does it plan to seek, a casino license. A deed restriction preventing it from being used as a casino remains in place. TJM has been trying for years without success to sell the property – and make the deal stick. Three previous sales have fallen through. In December 2014, Pennsylvania firm Endeavor Property Group inked a deal to buy the Atlantic Club. The company specializes in senior citizen and multiunit housing. But the deal fell through within a year.
In April 2017, a local investment group led by investor Ronald Young signed a deal to buy it, announcing plans for a family-friendly hotel, anchored by an indoor water park. But when financing dried up, so too did the water park plan, and the Atlantic Club went back on the market. In September 2018, a deal that would have seen Stockton University buy the building as part of its Atlantic City campus also died.
The Atlantic Club formerly did business as Steve Wynn’s Golden Nugget before a series of ownership changes. It closed January 13, 2014, the first of four Atlantic City casinos to go bust that year. It was jointly bought by Tropicana Entertainment and Caesars Entertainment, with Caesars maintaining control of the buildings and property. Caesars then sold it to TJM for $13.5 million, and the property has sat vacant ever since. AP
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