A.C. transit project approved
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Revel Entertainment LLC's $1.5 billion-plus mega-resort is scheduled to open in 2011 on a 22-acre site in Atlantic City.
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Courier-Post Staff
ATLANTIC CITY
Cranes and bulldozers are hard at work on the 20-acre site where Revel Entertainment LLC's $1.5 billion-plus mega-resort will open in 2011 in the South Inlet. Crews have pulled out 23 underground storage tanks and tons of old concrete.
Site preparation is slated for completion within six weeks.
Meanwhile, the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority approved The South Inlet Transportation Project on Tuesday, which will expand Connecticut and Massachusetts avenues into multilane mini-highways to ferry visitors to and from the complex.
The plan will expand Connecticut Avenue from Melrose Avenue to the Revel site's Oriental Avenue entrance, and expand Massachusetts Avenue from Oriental to Atlantic Avenue.
The authority undertook similar projects on Delaware Avenue to accommodate traffic to and from the Showboat and also along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to enhance traffic to midtown.
The total cost is pegged at around $91 million, with the authority chipping in more than a third.
"We'll create an extremely interesting integrated entertainment environment," said Revel CEO Kevin DeSanctis. "But we can't do it without the infrastructure," he said. "This casino hotel will move large volumes of people through it, so we all need to come to grips with an infrastructure that works and this approval is one of the first steps in that direction."
The improvements will also help other potential developments in the South Inlet area adjacent to Showboat. The goal is to avoid the kinds of snarls that gridlock midtown on Saturday nights in summer, said authority board member, Mark J. Juliano, acting CEO of Trump Entertainment Resorts.
But some area residents question the proposed improvements.
Will the highway carved out of Connecticut Avenue affect schoolchildren heading to the Uptown Complex?
Will older sewage pipes and housing withstand the heavy construction trucks rumbling through? Will homes be lost to make room?
John Thomas owns two units at the Beach Gate Condominiums at New Jersey and Pacific avenues. "We will be affected. We just want to make sure the CRDA communicates with Beach Gate as this moves forward," said Thomas, vice president of the condo owners association.
Kathy Terrigino owns a house on Metropolitan Avenue near what will be a temporary construction road to the property. She's worried her house will fall to eminent domain to make way for the road. DeSanctis assured her it won't.
Judith Dash also fears the project will cost her the Massachusetts Avenue home she's lived in for 32 years. The street is designed to be widened 33 feet to expand the number of lanes.
"I don't want anyone to take anything of mine away," she said.
She doesn't mind the noise of trucks rumbling to and from the site past her home. "That's the sound of progress," she said. "But if you kick me to the curb for progress, I don't approve. My love for the city will slowly be strangled."
Architect Thomas Sykes told Dash the home would not only be safe but would get landscaping to buffer it from the roadway.
What Revel has planned is a hotel tower with more than 2,000 rooms and land for a second tower, DeSanctis said. The project will include a casino floor in excess of 168,000 square feet and 500,000 square feet for retail and dining, and an event center. The project will also incorporate the natural environment, CRDA executive director Thomas Carver said.
Where walls face the boardwalk at the other casino hotels, Revel's design will incorporate the ocean view.
Schematics are complete and the company is in the design phase. DeSanctis hopes to have the designs finished in time to go before city planners within two months.
He also hopes to submit the winning bid to have the CRDA declare the development a retail entertainment district, a move that would kick-start sales tax rebate programs to recapture some of the construction costs.
The winning bidder must be a major developer who has a substantial investment in a project and control of the site, among other stipulations, Carver said.
"That designation is a significant benefit," DeSanctis said. "It would help balance the scales a little."
Reach William H. Sokolic at (609) 823-9159 or wsokolic@courierpostonline.com (Related)
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