Should Atlantic City become a beach city?

[D-man]

except slots used to bring in most of the revenue and once table games at the Philly casinos are up and running the market will shrink again fir ac. They will be competing for a small slice of the pie. Ac has been trying to do exactly what you said but I doubt it's enough. I'm with peezy, rates are rdiculously high for such a dump...ironically, more hotels and things to do would make it more like it used to be.

That's why AC needs to market to a larger geographical area. Pa casinos will cut into the PA market, but I doubt they will draw many visitors from other states. Touting the beach and adding more non-gambling things to do will increase the market, as well.

I agree that hotel rates are high, but they are not ridiculously high considering most of the hotels are 4-5 star quality. Weekend rates could be lower, but weekday rates are ridiculously cheap. You can stay at the nicest places (Ceasars, Harrah's) for less than $60 a night.

[D-man]

Atlantic City should be like a mini Las Vegas? Atlantic City was world famous before Las Vegas was more than a dusty desert crossroads. Your statement is like saying that England should be like a mini Australia.

What I'm saying is that AC should reinvent itself, because it is no longer the "America's Playground" it once was. For better or for worse, most of those old hotels are gone. I've been to Disney's Boardwalk resort, and it's very nice. However, its a glamorized version of old AC, if that's what it attempts to be. AC was an underground gambling and nightclub mecca long before the casinos were built.

[eldondre]

That's why AC needs to market to a larger geographical area. Pa casinos will cut into the PA market, but I doubt they will draw many visitors from other states. Touting the beach and adding more non-gambling things to do will increase the market, as well.

I agree that hotel rates are high, but they are not ridiculously high considering most of the hotels are 4-5 star quality. Weekend rates could be lower, but weekday rates are ridiculously cheap. You can stay at the nicest places (Ceasars, Harrah's) for less than $60 a night.

I wouldn't doubt too much. it's easier to get to Philly than AC from NY. If done right, it will cut into all but the highest end business which AC will be splitting with Vegas. To be honest, I've found the rates to be ridiculously high and the quality low. once we paid $250 night for the best western. you're right though, weekday rates are cheap...it's just that I have no interest in spending my vacation there but easy weekends at the shore is something I'd be interested in. I'm not particularly interested in gambling though so the chelsea is probably more my speed. I think the casino market is in decline and competition is chipping away at profitability. the AC casinos will never recover. NY and PA make up most of their business I'd imagine. It failed to save AC 30 years ago. it's failing now. for the first time in recent history PA raked in more gambling money than AC and table games and Philly casinos haven't even opened. I'd love to see it go back to being a beach city with nightclubs, restaurants, etc. It's been trying but it waited too long. it's terribly corrupt to boot and there's too much public housing. NJ should have been applying for HSR funds to building something like the Orlando-Tampa for Philly-AC. and get rid of some of the casinos. the quarter was neat but Tropicana's casino was crap and the restaurants worthless. free up development on the boardwalk for hotels and non-chain development. you're pulling in people from Philly and NY, two places where food and nightlife quality are relatively high.

[billy ross]

d

I wouldn't doubt too much. it's easier to get to Philly than AC from NY. If done right, it will cut into all but the highest end business which AC will be splitting with Vegas. To be honest, I've found the rates to be ridiculously high and the quality low. once we paid $250 night for the best western. you're right though, weekday rates are cheap...it's just that I have no interest in spending my vacation there but easy weekends at the shore is something I'd be interested in. I'm not particularly interested in gambling though so the chelsea is probably more my speed. I think the casino market is in decline and competition is chipping away at profitability. the AC casinos will never recover. NY and PA make up most of their business I'd imagine. It failed to save AC 30 years ago. it's failing now. for the first time in recent history PA raked in more gambling money than AC and table games and Philly casinos haven't even opened. I'd love to see it go back to being a beach city with nightclubs, restaurants, etc. It's been trying but it waited too long. it's terribly corrupt to boot and there's too much public housing. NJ should have been applying for HSR funds to building something like the Orlando-Tampa for Philly-AC. and get rid of some of the casinos. the quarter was neat but Tropicana's casino was crap and the restaurants worthless. free up development on the boardwalk for hotels and non-chain development. you're pulling in people from Philly and NY, two places where food and nightlife quality are relatively high.

The fundamental problem with Atlantic City is that it is very much unlike New York and Philadelphia. The latter two cities have had their ups and downs, but they were able to gradually reinvent themselves over and over again, never truly letting go of their former selves until the very end, and thus never losing their vitality - as one industry waned another sprang up to keep the city going. Thus in Philly one can still see the signs on the buildings advertising rope and canvas for sale for the sailing ships. Atlantic City stepped off of the dock, but there was no ship for it to step onto, so it was left all wet. By this I mean that AC let go of its former self (actively got rid of it, actually) but it has never really gotten a new self, so we are left with tremendous vacancy and blight in AC, and the casinos can't possibly fill that void, since they turn their backs on the city.

It is the same problem with Penn's Landing in Philly. How do you create something from nothing? This seems like a hard question until you consider that both New York and Philly were both nothing at one point, as were London, Paris, and Rome. The simple answer to the question is that something needs to grow organically, just as the five aforementioned cities did. Sure, glitzy things can help (see the Piazza in Northern Liberties here in Philly). However, in my opinion it is organic growth which makes the difference. We Americans understand this with our economy - it is organic, and in the aggregation each little piece adds up to a staggeringly powerful whole. For some reason, though, we think that in land development we need a Soviet, centrally planned solution. That too often leads to a Penns Landing, or, worse, a King of Prussia Mall (or everyone's favorite overscaled mall in Center City Philly). If Atlantic City set intelligent zoning rules and made great efforts to get land out in the hands of smaller developers, it could see what Philly saw in Southwest Center City, Northern Liberties, and Old City, which is many smaller operators independently building neighborhoods, not some godawful master planned monstrosity like the Garden State Park redevelopment. This Garden State Park model of redevelopment is what Atlantic City has been attempting to do on a grand scale for the past 45 years, and it is a bad plan. It's not working for them, yet they continue to bang their heads against the wall. If they had pursued the model of small, local developers using small, local banks to build manageable projects, they would be on their second or third generation of redevelopment already, which is ironically what Sea Isle City and other healthier places have seen happen. Ironically Center City Philly has seen just that on a larger scale, with people like Allen Domb, Carl Dranoff, and the like doing job after job and building the city out. Meanwhile AC is still waiting for the Great Society to get built by some big out of town developer.

[eldondre]

pinnacle is folding it's hand
Pinnacle folds its hand in Atlantic City | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/06/2010

[desolate]

Vegas isn't under a foot of snow.

One more reason why it would be hard for AC to become a modern tourist mecca with only 3 months of beach weather.


So you have a beach city that can only really use it's "beach" for a quarter of the year.

Makes it hard. Hard enough to resort to gambling to bring folks down for the other 9 months.

Otherwise you shut shop like Wildwood and live on meager budgets.

[billy ross]

Vegas isn't under a foot of snow.

One more reason why it would be hard for AC to become a modern tourist mecca with only 3 months of beach weather.


So you have a beach city that can only really use it's "beach" for a quarter of the year.

Makes it hard. Hard enough to resort to gambling to bring folks down for the other 9 months.

Otherwise you shut shop like Wildwood and live on meager budgets.

I guess Martha's Vineyard, Maine, Nantucket, the Cape, the Hamptons, Spring Lake, Margate, Ocean City, Sea Isle City, Avalon, Stone Harbor, and Cape May will be applying for their casino licenses any day now, since it is obvious that the economics of a three month season really don't work.

[desolate]

I guess Martha's Vineyard, Maine, Nantucket, the Cape, the Hamptons, Spring Lake, Margate, Ocean City, Sea Isle City, Avalon, Stone Harbor, and Cape May will be applying for their casino licenses any day now, since it is obvious that the economics of a three month season really don't work.

Sorry billy, you know damn well why those places survive and prosper.

They priced out the undesirable (and throw a touch of racism in those towns to boot) and they sit on very restricted land areas so they can drive land values high enough to force out the people in AC that make AC, AC.

If AC could have priced out all the poor who came and stayed they wouldn't need casinos but they sit on a huge island (compared to the shore towns you mention) and dont' have the same land values of any of the places you mention.

Another island with a lot of land, wildwood, and it struggles as well.


It's simple. It's why San Fran, Manhattan, etc are pricey. Limited land.

AC has lots, and lots, of available lots.

[nsm]

They could do alot to make AC a very nice beach town. Ocean city is great for kids and its the best beach town to take young children since its a dry town. Wildwood has the rides and the teens love that. Atlantic City on the other hand is mainly for gaming. It would draw alot more people if they could make it more like South beach with nice bars and more attractions in and on the beach area. Yes, they have bikini beach bars at most of the casino, but they are not that great. They charge alot for a cover and charge a ridiculous amount for a glass of ice with water and a splash of alcohol. They have not done good because you can get free drinks at the casino. If it was priced normally and developed , it could be a very happening place. I would also like to see more of a police presence on the boardwalk to make people feel safe so there could be a nite life on the boardwalk. People who want to gamble are always going to gamble and it would not detract from that, but it would draw more people to party in a beach town if it had more to offer. I always wondered why Ocean city can keep the homeless and the panhandlers off of their boardwalk and atlantic city cannot.

[billy ross]

Sorry billy, you know damn well why those places survive and prosper.

They priced out the undesirable (and throw a touch of racism in those towns to boot) and they sit on very restricted land areas so they can drive land values high enough to force out the people in AC that make AC, AC.

If AC could have priced out all the poor who came and stayed they wouldn't need casinos but they sit on a huge island (compared to the shore towns you mention) and dont' have the same land values of any of the places you mention.

Another island with a lot of land, wildwood, and it struggles as well.


It's simple. It's why San Fran, Manhattan, etc are pricey. Limited land.

AC has lots, and lots, of available lots.

Margate is one of those towns I mentioned, and it is on an island called Absecon. Ever heard of Absecon Island? There are two other towns on Absecon Island. One is called Ventnor. The other is called Atlantic City. In addition, the next island to the north, Brigantine, is in the same school district as the municipalities on Absecon Island. I have always wanted to learn more about Atlantic City High School, since it has such an odd mix of towns and thus people contributing to it. From what I know it is quite heterogeneous. They have always had a good crew team.

[eldondre]

Kick the casinos off the beach, they're corny. I like the beach party town idea.
It's what AC used to be known for.

[billy ross]

Kick the casinos off the beach, they're corny. I like the beach party town idea.
It's what AC used to be known for.

The cows have left the barn there. If you demolish a town which is known as a special place, what do you have left? Carthage? It's an interesting question. Some German cities are positively scary, since they were rebuilt on the cheap during a bad era. The way that Philly built new in Northern Liberties and is building new in lower North Philly is instructive; this recent town-building shares one thing in common with the way Philly was built the first time around, and it is diametrically opposed to the Atlantic City strategy. Philly has a culture of small-scale local developers building small-scale 'fabric' buildings. These are so much easier to get done than the mega-deals which so often get delayed or cancelled (see Penn's Landing, Worthington, mega-casino skeleton in AC, etc), and their rhythms are much more human-scale. It is heartening to see that we can still do it today. It's amazing to see whole new neighborhoods take shape in what had been prairie - it's really fun to watch. 40 plus years on, much of Atlantic City is still prairie. It's a really depressing place to walk around. I'll probably bike it from AC down to Cape May as soon as the weather permits - I'm looking forward to it.

[desolate]

Margate is one of those towns I mentioned, and it is on an island called Absecon. Ever heard of Absecon Island? There are two other towns on Absecon Island. One is called Ventnor. The other is called Atlantic City. In addition, the next island to the north, Brigantine, is in the same school district as the municipalities on Absecon Island. I have always wanted to learn more about Atlantic City High School, since it has such an odd mix of towns and thus people contributing to it. From what I know it is quite heterogeneous. They have always had a good crew team.

And Lower Dennis is filled with trailer parks and is the first place I've ever seen a person smoke crack, in 1993.

I think of those places, Ventor etc as the thin part of Absecon, thus raising the value.

Also, it's not very mixed from all the white crew teams we encountered and the many times I've been hammered in Margate.

Longport is the thinnest portion, and now shocker, the wealthiest.

[IMG] Picture of absecon island that was too wide and annoying[/IMG]

[eldondre]

Atlantic city also has a good amount of something else that Philly also has, and have helped destroy many a neighborhood....public housing.

[desolate]

Atlantic city also has a good amount of something else that Philly also has, and have helped destroy many a neighborhood....public housing.

Agreed. Affordable usually means "politicians in an endless loop of building homes for voters in a downward spiral"

I hate artificially sustained poverty or where people defend to keep an area poor (re: affordable)


I am greatly pleased by the success of the AC Walk and the amount of foot traffic is generates in the area from the train station to the boardwalk.

If AC could focus more on these types of street level projects that are purely for visitors and less for the locals maybe they could do the same thing Philly id and attract your rich progressive yuppie types who push the grassroots efforts

that end up pricing out those poor people. Like in South Philly and East Falls.

Where the city kicked out the poor and relocated the projects when they saw the tax values shoot up.


I do think AC specifically keeps the poor there as a massive minimum wage labor pool for the casinos. Problem is it's so spread out.


Only the towns that Billy Ross mentioned seem to be able to force the poor out by taxation and police harassment or zoning against multi-family unit or whatever they do that makes them way different in makeup and value than the same style housing in AC.

Last time i was wandering around (in my car) on Baccarat Blvd and the North Side of AC it was all rentals.


(again, why the Affordable housing argument in Chinatown irks me for the same reasons)

[eldondre]

it's not about pricing out the poor, the fact is, those projects aren't the best way to serve poor people. people don't grow up saying I want to live in the projects. the idea should be to help people out of poverty, not to trap them in it. to that end, gradually reducing the number of projects is the way to go. there are tens of thousands on a waiting list in philly. how do you get them off? change the requirements.

[D-man]

How different would things be if this had actually been developed?

General Electric of France, the article said, had offered to pay $100 million to build a new rail line linking Philadelphia and New York to Atlantic City with trains that could go 100 miles an hour.

High-speed trains were coming to France then, and the French unit of one of our industrial icons wanted to showcase how they could be duplicated here.

Winging It: Hope accelerating for high-speed rail | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/08/2010

[desolate]

How different would things be if this had actually been developed?

Winging It: Hope accelerating for high-speed rail | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/08/2010

It may have brought new industry to AC and lessened the need for casino $$ to fund the city.

although I'm not quite sure what natural advantage AC has except it's 3 month beach.

You'd need something for the other 9. Something in a big closed heated building that could attract people from all over.

[Phila]

yeah that place is to ghetto to be a beach town.

[eldondre]

how about a nude beach?