/ / / / /

Over Before It Began: Hard Rock Atlantic City Not Happening

September 17, 2012 at 12:28 PM | by | Comments (0)

After much back-and-forth, it looks like plans for Hard Rock Atlantic City have finally been put to rest. Developers of the casino hotel, the first phase of which was scheduled to open in 2015, apparently backed out of the deal on Wednesday, after they'd already been given a generous six-month extension by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission to get their act together.

Which, as we can see, they failed to do.

What a bummer! When we first heard about these plans in 2010, we were actually pretty excited—especially given the fact that Revel was being billed as Atlantic City's "last casino" for a while. We'd kinda hoped that Hard Rock would become the boardwalk's miracle hotel, proving everyone else wrong. Instead, we just get another empty, unused lot.

Bloomberg reports:

"AC Gateway LLC said Wednesday it is not proceeding with a casino-hotel on the south end of the beach that could have included a musical history museum with items from when the Beatles and Rolling Stones separately played Atlantic City. It cited the economy and Atlantic City's struggling casino market."

Which is totally reasonable, considering that even Revel—which had all of AC's hopes riding on its success—has reportedly struggled to keep its numbers up despite a strong debut over Memorial Day Weekend with Beyonce at the helm.

In case you forgot, the planned Hard Rock was going to make use of a new law passed allowing smaller, "boutique" casino hotels to be built. The previous law required new hotels to contain at least 500 rooms, but under the new model, that minimum was lowered to just 200.

What's more, Atlantic City still thinks it can lure another developer into the site, with state Senator James Whelan telling Bloomberg:

"We're disappointed, but this was not totally unexpected with the market conditions in Atlantic City and the overall state of the economy. Hopefully Hard Rock or someone else will take a look at this model in the future"

...to be continued!

[Photo: brianstowell / Flickr]

Comments (0)

Post a Comment

Join the conversation!

Not a member? .
Use of this Site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (effective 3/21/12) and Privacy Policy (effective 3/21/12). © Condé Nast. Your California Privacy Rights. All rights reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast.
Ad Choices