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The year after Borgata opened, the Cordish Co., a mall developer based in Baltimore, Md., opened the Walk, a string of outlet stores; the Tropicana's Quarter also got going. House of Blues started bringing in hip acts to the Showboat casino, and Atlantic City's nightlife began to surge as rap star Jay-Z and others opened clubs. A slew of room expansions was announced, filling a major need in Atlantic City, which with only 18,000 rooms (compared with 133,000 in Las Vegas) can't accommodate big conventions. At the same time, a real estate boom in once dumpy shore towns from Long Branch to Asbury Park was spreading south. The Atlantic City development angered some homeowners and small businesses whose property stood in the way. But in a town where more than half the city budget comes from property taxes on casinos, things have a way of progressing.
And progress they have. At the Tropicana, nongaming revenue, including from hotel rooms, jumped 55% in the first year after the Quarter opened. At the same time, gambling revenue increased 21%. Not surprisingly, the longer people stayed, the more they played.
Success like that is spurring growth. In March Morgan Stanley said it would buy boardwalk-adjacent property and look for a partner to build a casino. Bally's and Caesars are about to announce expansion plans. Trump Entertainment Resorts, recently out of bankruptcy, is seeing salvation in building more rooms and converting its pier into a retail-and-entertainment complex. And MGM Mirage, which owns land next door to the Borgata, is advancing its timetable for building a massive complex of rooms, condos and retail. "It's no longer a question of if," MGM Mirage CEO Terry Lanni said recently. "It's a question of when."
It all sounds very promising, but since gambling arrived in 1978, Atlantic City has been up and down more times than the roller coaster that once occupied the pier where Gordon built his mall. In the late 1990s, five casinos were on the drawing board. Only one got built.
This time around, things are different, says Gordon. "Atlantic City wasn't ready," he says as he eats lunch at Evo, a white-linen restaurant at Trump Plaza that, Gordon observes, is a marked improvement over the joints he used to frequent in the mid-'90s. "Right now, Atlantic City is the same as Las Vegas was 15 years ago," he says. "This is as close as I've come to a sure thing. It's no gamble at all." Which is why he's betting the house on it.