Route 40 (https://rtforty.com/category/news/business/page/4/)
South Jersey business news for Atlantic City and its surrounding suburbs.
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.
Jared Cocca was selling medical devices, driving thousands of miles each year for a paycheck and two weeks’ holiday. But earlier this year, the twenty-something Mays Landing resident ditched the steady gig in favor of starting his own woodcraft business. There were a lot of different reasons that prompted Cocca to make the change. He is relatively recently married and wanted more time with his wife. He is a rock-climbing enthusiast and likes being able to take off on Fridays for trips to upstate New York.
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.
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 company that manages the retail outlets at The Walk in Atlantic City is working on bringing in new tenants after occupancy dropped to a more than five-year low earlier this summer.
The Walk, which has received just shy of $60 million* in funding from the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority since 2000, was a keystone of efforts to help diversify the city’s economy.
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.
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.
Atlantic City’s Garden Pier, purchased earlier this year by Philadelphia developer Bart Blatstein, will be reopening next month as a locals-focused entertainment venue with live music and a bar area. In the shadow of the still-shuttered mega-casino Revel and not far from Blatstein’s Showboat hotel, the newly renamed PierAC plans to draw Atlantic County residents with a reward-card program and drink specials – plus entertainment.
There have been many different plans for reviving Atlantic City’s fortunes, but one consistent idea has been to make more of the island city’s proximity to the water. This year, new tenants at the former Atlantic City Boatyard are launching two new businesses that will give that a go.