Route 40 (https://rtforty.com/tag/atlantic-city/page/9/)
“If Dorothy was a hooker.” I laughed out loud when I received that private message. It was sent from a former resident of Atlantic City in response to my public post on Facebook, with a wonderful picture of Atlantic City, wherein I stated our beloved city is like “Oz on the Ocean”. It doesn’t matter how much I love AC – the truth is the truth. Our city, to outside eyes is ugly, unsafe, and a place that begs you to be careful.
As an Atlantic City and Atlantic County resident there are things I’ve noticed:
It seems to me, the state takeover did not become unconstitutional within the county offices until it impacted negatively on the amount of money the county would receive. What was it before? It seems to me, people in Atlantic City are getting tickets and don’t even see the meters. To many, they don’t look like meters, and aren’t at every spot. We should take lessons from successful towns up and down the coast and suspend parking fees in the winter, with possible exceptions, like the walk area, or holiday weekends. In winter, we inhabit a virtual ghost town and have few visitors.
About 450 children and 27o adults and parents could lose access to federally-funded after-school services provided in Buena, Atlantic City and Pleasantville school districts. The services, offered under the 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program, are among those that would be affected by President Trump’s proposal to end $1.2 billion in grants for after-school and summer programs.
There are three sites in Atlantic County that offer the program, which also provides after-school care for individuals with disabilities. This is a roundup of the local 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program, according to details from New Jersey’s Department of Education:
Damon Germano and Gabrielle Cianfrani just wanted to make a better cup of coffee. Somewhere along the line, their personal mission turned into a business. Now, from a corner of Pleasantville not far from the old Ireland Coffee Company plant, Boardwalk Beans is roasting small batches of carefully-selected coffee for retail and wholesale customers. Germano used to work for Ireland, back when Ireland had a small store in one of the Atlantic City casinos. “I was really into coffee, I had the beret, the turtleneck – the whole thing,” he said.
Stockton University is seeking a coffee shop to occupy a boardwalk-fronting retail space in its planned $100-million-dollar student-residence building in Atlantic City, according to a document published on Friday. The University’s request-for-qualifications (RFQ) is the most recent step in the realization of a total $200 million project that is set to bring massive change to the southern end of the city within a couple of years. Prospective tenants must be regional or national brands, with at least five years’ business experience, according to the document (here). The coffee shop will be permitted to sell food that requires ‘limited cooking’ – since the University will be looking for a restaurant operator to move into a larger retail space in the same building. The coffee shop is one of three total retail spaces in the residence building, which is set to become home to 533 students in August 2018.
Stockton University is in “preliminary talks” to develop* some or all of Atlantic City’s Bader Field, according to people with knowledge of the matter. If the university were to occupy the site, it would further extend Galloway-based Stockton’s reach in Atlantic City, where it is building a residential campus, parking garage and academic center scheduled to open in 2018. The university is considering using the Bader Field site for a marine sciences and resiliency center, one of the people said. University President Harvey Kesselman discussed the idea as part of wider plans for the university in a presentation to Stockton foundation board members last week. Kesselman has had talks with Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian about buying* some of the site, one other person said.
It’s a sign-of-the-times story. Successful local conglomerate tries to refit struggling bus parking lot as urban RV park. When that fails, it opens a drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic. In another sign of the times, the zoning board unanimously approves the renovation plan and there is no public comment. Where is this happening?
Developers of 1. N. Boston held a ribbon-cutting for their renovated apartment building in Atlantic City. We talked to David Hansel of Alpha Funding about why they’re bullish on residential in a town some people think is about to slide into the ocean.
In May last year Atlantic City’s water authority hired advisory firm Acacia Financial Group to craft a concession agreement that would help the authority both retain its independence and stave off a state takeover of the city. Acacia Financial helped draft two 100-page-plus documents chock-full of inside information and financial details but just a few months later it abruptly ended its $20,000 contract with the water authority because it had accepted another contract – with the New Jersey department that held state-takeover powers. New Jersey, now tasked with plucking Atlantic City from its financial death spiral, is sitting on a detailed plan that would help potential buyers put a price on one of the casino resort’s few remaining assets: its water authority. What’s more, the plan calculates the future water-rate rises that might be possible for the authority. “Their analysis sets forth what a combined rate structure could be, given a concession model,” said Bruce Ward, executive director of the Atlantic City Municipal Utilities Authority said in an interview last month.
What’s Keeping the South Inlet Empty? In mid-August of last summer a real estate investor from Florida named Bruce Pender bought a small plot of land in the South Inlet neighborhood of Atlantic City. He paid $25,000 to acquire 206 S. Vermont Avenue, tax records show. The old owner, Seaview Property Development of Turnersville, had been sitting on the land since 2005. In real estate terms, this was one of the rarest commodities going: beachfront land about an hour’s drive from Philadelphia—two and a half hours (give or take) from New York City.