'It's like a church built for Easter Sunday,' said Rob Heller, president and CEO of Spectrum Gaming Capital, an investment banking and advisory firm focused on the casino industry. That, too, could be expensive, requiring cash for rebranding, cash to build a customer base, and cash to fix serious design flaws in the casino itself.
But they say any fix will cost a buyer tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, to put kitchens in its 1,400 rooms and do something - anything - with the restaurants and gaming floor on the lower levels of the tower.Īnd then there are those who still hold out hope that a buyer will come in with a low-ball offer and continue to operate it as a casino. Observers have begun to ponder the Revel's future as a hotel without casino gambling, or as condos. 'We really don't know,' said Liza Cartmell, president of the Atlantic City Alliance, the New Jersey city's tourism marketing organization. Now community leaders, real estate professionals and gaming experts have been left to wonder: what comes next for the Revel? Gaming revenue for Atlantic City, which once held a lucrative East Coast gambling monopoly, has dropped from a peak of $5.2 billion in 2006 to $2.8 billion in 2013, according to New Jersey gaming regulators.
