Bart Blatstein anticipates opening Playground at the Caesar’s Pier by July 4, 2015. Atlantic City’s newest addition will offer shops bars and restaurants on the first floor, with an entertainment area in the back. Philips’ Seafood, the Sushi Bar, Buddakan, and the Continental will remain on the second floor with the possibility of additional restaurants. A state of the art bowling alley will also be installed on the second floor. Level three, with upgrades remains an event center. An outdoor swimming pool, beach bar, and activities will bring the Playground to the beach.
Boardwalk cameras are becoming a reality. They will be installed on the poles that hold the TV screens (more screens coming). Cameras will rotate 360 degrees and those at street ends will record activities as far as Atlantic Avenue. All feeds will go to the Police Station
Rick Santoro, SID Director gave a brief history of SID funding and history. Originally funded by business taxes; once the tourism district had been created, the CRDA supplemented funding. Over time, the assessment portions dropped to 30%; CRDA provides 70%. Faced with a $2.2M deficit for 2015 with no increase in funding from either source, Rick implemented the following changes:
- Laid off everyone, salaried employees and embedded contractors. Brought back 60%, bringing outsourced workers into department as employees.
- Created cross-trained squads (including managers, supervisors, and crews) to cover four zones throughout city.
- Developed Quality Assurance standards, training, and inspections, along with external assessments to ensure QA.
- Worked within budget on greater deep cleaning on the streets and under the boardwalk.
- Adjusted equipment allocations, including adding “big belly trash cans.”
- Power-washed and steam-cleaned streets and boardwalks.
- Employees receive 16-hour classroom training encompassing customer service, CPR, terrorism activity awareness & job-related skills.
- Adjusted schedules to adequately cover high-volume hours.
- Ambassador hours tweaked to make way for Class II officers.
CRDA Report from Karen Martin:
- Pacific Avenue milling and paving began on April 1. Project took approximately 19 work days, Monday through Friday.
- Garden State Film Festival came to Atlantic City for the second straight year. Organizers said 22,000 visitors attended in 2015. (increase over last year’s 15,000) Many visitors to festival stayed overnight for entire weekend.
- 10th annual Atlantic City Beer and Music Fest held at Convention Center.
- 25,000 attendees, slight increase from last year’s 24,000. Now the second largest beer festival in country (largest is Denver).
- Show generated nearly 4,000 hotel rooms on Friday & Saturday nights.
- Atlantic City Rail Line reports Beer Fest weekend had highest single day ridership.
Public shows coming up at the Convention Center:
- Magic the Gathering – May 8-10 – Fans of the trading card game.
- Atlantic City Boardwalk Con – May 15-17 – Comic book convention.
Boardwalk Hall shows:
- 14,000 attendees for Miranda Lambert and Mayday (a very popular Chinese rock group) concerts.
- Post-event survey sent to online ticket purchasers indicated:
- 68% of ticketholders dined in Atlantic City restaurants before or after the event
- 51% of ticketholders stayed at an Atlantic City hotel during their visit
- 50% of ticketholders spent more than $200 during their time in Atlantic City outside of Boardwalk Hall on food, gambling, accommodations or retail
- 76% of ticketholders traveled more than 50 miles to attend the events
- The 7th Annual Atlantic City Restaurant Week was very successful, even though the weather caused some difficulties.
- 74 area restaurants participated. About 30 held their Restaurant Week menus and prices over for at least another week.
- Some casino properties created a Restaurant Month.
- BET Project – The Bruce Toll retail project on the Boardwalk next to West Hall of Boardwalk Hall:
- Work is going quickly.
- 12 stores are planned.
Harrah’s Waterfront Conference Center Construction
- Media team attended a press tour of the facility on March 25th.
- Construction continues to go at a steady pace.
- The wall and floor finishes for the kitchen are about 50% complete.
- Mechanical, electrical and plumbing rough-ins are almost finished.
- Support steel for the movable partitions in the 50,000-square-foot ballrooms are being installed.
- Second floor pre-function space outside of the Avalon ballroom will offer stunning views of the Marina District and Absecon Bay.
- Have currently signed contracts for more than 60 events with an economic impact of $16-$17 million.
- Still looking at a fall completion.
Spirit Airlines Seasonal Service is resuming:
- ACY to Boston, Detroit, Atlanta and Chicago – check with Spirit for schedules and prices.
- Plus, air service with Air Canada from ACY and Toronto will begin Memorial Day Weekend.
Boardwalk Interactive Lighting Display Program
- An Atlantic County Improvement Authority (ACIA) project that was approved at last month’s CRDA Board meeting.
- Cost is $33.6 million – private funding from ACIA’s subtenant, Impactivate, contributing $20.8 million and $12.8 million in gap financing being sought from the CRDA.
- This is a state-of-the-art interactive program that will be equipped to display upcoming entertainment, events, advertising, and announcements, and will add to our visitor’s positive experience along the Boardwalk.
- Project will include:
- Installation of 164 LED marine-grade light pole fixtures between Jackson and Vermont avenues
- Procurement/installation of 72 pan-tilt-zoom security cameras, electrical conduit, meters and fiber optics that will be connected to the ACPD through 72 street end poles
- Creation of a digital data storage center for operations of a surveillance/security camera network
- Removal of 187 existing Victorian-style street lights and retrofitting to LED
- Removal of 41 existing aluminum cobra-head lamps and light poles
- Installation of up to four state-of-the-art interactive components at City-approved locations
- And, 110 high-resolution outdoor LED matrix screens along the length of the Boardwalk that will display upcoming local events and provide free Wi-Fi internet access and mobile device charging stations.
Resorts meeting room expansion/hotel room renovation
- Board voted to modify an earlier agreement with Resorts that provided a fund reservation of $9.8 million from available and future IAT obligations for a meeting room expansion project and renovation of 310 hotel bathrooms.
- The modified agreement will allow Resorts to not proceed with the room renovation portion of the project unless future IAT revenues are readily available to Resorts.
- Meeting space expansion completion is anticipated by this summer.
CRDA also approved redevelopment plans by the City of Atlantic City to allow
Former firehouse on Connecticut Avenue at 535 Atlantic Avenue to be repurposed for “the production and retail/wholesale of craft spirits, related uses and restaurants with entertainment
Next meeting: Wednesday, May 13, 2015, 9:30 a.m.