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News and information for Atlantic City residents and visitors.
Two nonprofits, the Catholic church, a development company and a casino are all coming together to refurbish a former school in Atlantic City. It might sound like an odd alliance but transforming the former St Michael’s school into a useable space almost three decades after it closed is turning out to be a little tougher than expected.
The Atlantic City Council voted 9-0 last week on a resolution to give its support to a direct, high-speed rail line that would connect Atlantic City, via Toms River, to New York City.
Local institution Gilchrist Restaurant is opening a fourth location on Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City at the site of the former Teplitzky’s Diner, according to a Facebook announcement on Thursday.
A Ventnor-based team of producers is hoping to shoot a one-hour dramatic series in Atlantic City this fall. Little Rock Films + Studios is fundraising to pay for a pilot episode that would be filmed in the city in November and offered to networks after post-production next year.
We took a tour of the work being done on the beach block of Tennessee Avenue in Atlantic City last week, to check out progress on buildings that will house three new businesses and a non-profit. The so-called Tennessee Avenue Renaissance Project consists of a dozen properties on the Inlet side of the street. The developers will be opening a coffee shop, a beer hall, a non-profit yoga studio and a chocolate bar in the first phase of the project this fall. The beer hall, named ‘The Ten’, is the largest space on the block, next to two vacant lots that will be transformed into an outdoor beer garden. A back room at the beer hall will feature pinball, pool tables and other games.
The great Trump Taj Mahal liquidation sale opened to the public at 10:00 a.m. on July 6, about eight months after the casino closed and 167 days after Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the president of the United States. History was very much the subtext of the Taj Mahal fire sale, which offered customers a chance at a piece of the Donald, recently assured of his own place in history. But since mid-February, the surname of the president has been scrubbed from the property under the terms of a deal between Donald and his friend and economic adviser, Carl Icahn, who until recently controlled the property. There were no TRUMP-branded artifacts for sale at the Taj.
There was shoveling and other work going on at the future site of the Boardwalk beer garden in Atlantic City on Wednesday, after weeks of little action. Some demolition work was completed in May, when the project was first approved by the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, which oversees planning in the city’s tourism district. Since then, though, there has been little news about the project that had originally been slated by the owners for a July 4 open. The company behind the project, Dectrinity, already runs the Bungalow beach bar and the Boardwalk bar next door to the proposed beer garden site at the corner with California Avenue. According to the plans, The Biergarten AC will have an outdoor kitchen area, two bars, three fire pits and a game area.
The Casino Reinvestment Development Authority and the Revel’s holding company have settled a dispute over unpaid tourism-district fees that led to CRDA filing a lien on the shuttered casino property at the northern end of the Boardwalk in May. Documents filed with the Atlantic County Clerk show the lien tied to the dispute over $64,604.30 in unpaid 2015 Special Improvement District Assessments was discharged on June 30. Reports of a possible sale of the Revel have swirled in the last few weeks. The Press of Atlantic City reported that a $220 million offer for the property was made earlier this month. Revel’s owner Glenn Straub last year leased the property to a group of developers who rebranded it as TEN.
“Maybe if people see what’s going on to our f*cking beautiful home, they’ll want to do something about it,” says Erik Klemetti, at the start of an Atlantic City documentary he and friends from the @AtlanticCityCrust Instagram feed have put together. It’s a 40-minute mashup of videos Klemetti and the Crust crew filmed in Atlantic City, including interviews with all of your favorite AC characters. And in amid the chaos and confusion there are some wise words spoken about the Queen of Resorts. We’ve written about Klemetti before. Earlier this year, he set up a GoFundMe page to help out Alex, who was sleeping rough behind an Atlantic City gas station for more than a decade.
A lot has been happening on Tennessee Avenue in Atlantic City since a trio with a vision announced a plan this spring to create multiple hangout spots for locals and visitors on the beach block. But most of the activity has been behind closed doors.