The pains of Atlantic City’s struggles these days have become increasingly difficult for even smaller boutique casinos to set up shop in the once-proud gambling destination. Citing the town’s floundering casino market and the economy on a more general scale, Hard Rock International, the casino and entertainment company owned by Seminole Indians, has decided to scrap their plans of building a hotel-casino in Atlantic City.
In a statement the company issued this week, Hard Rock explained the rationale behind the decision to withdraw their application only hours before it would’ve had to pay a $1 million application to the state, saying that the time wasn’t ripe to make an investment on a town that has seen much better days. “Hard Rock International has decided not to move forward with an application for a potential hotel-casino development in Atlantic City, due to current market conditions,” the statement said.
The company did say that while they’re closing the door for now, they’re not about to throw the keys into the river. “We have been evaluating Atlantic City as a prospective location for a hotel-casino development and have not eliminated this location for a future endeavor,” it added.
The proposed casino, which would have been a joint build between Hard Rock and AC Gateway, was supposed to be a boutique-type hotel that would have initially 208 rooms before expanding to 850 rooms and a casino. The site would also feature a music history museum featuring items from both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones from when both bands played in the gambling town.
Hard Rock’s decision to drop out of its casino plans was met with disappointment from Sen. James Whelan, the man behind the idea of Atlantic City’s “smaller-is-friendlier” boutique casino law. “We’re disappointed, but this was not totally unexpected with the market conditions in Atlantic City and the overall state of the economy,” the senator said. “Hopefully Hard Rock or someone else will take a look at this model in the future.”
With Atlantic City’s struggles becoming more and more glaring by the day, it was a smart move by Hard Rock to pull back on their boutique casino plans, at least for now. They only need to look at the five-month old Revel, the supposed grandiose hotel and casino that was supposed to jump start the town’s economic market only to end up being a victim of all the hype surrounding, having bled so much money in its mission to fulfill its promise that it needed serious financial infusion to keep it from going bankrupt.
