Donald Trump says he's considering a return to Atlantic City, a place that treated him and his business interests well in the past.
"I left seven years ago,” Trump told the
New York Post's Page Six during the Central Park Horse Show this week. "I had great years in Atlantic City, I did well in Atlantic City. I’m gonna take a look at it. Not the same place, unfortunately.”
On Tuesday, the
Trump Plaza closed its doors, sending home its longtime workers and gamblers. The Plaza's closing leaves Atlantic City with just eight casinos, after starting 2014 with 12.
In addition, Trump Entertainment plans to close its last Atlantic City casino, the Taj Mahal, on Nov. 13, unless the unions give into concessions and surrender health insurance and pensions. The Taj Mahal filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, reports Page Six.
Trump sold off his controlling interest to both casinos years ago,
reports The Star-Ledger, and has recently filed suit to have his name removed from both the Plaza and the Taj Mahal.
However, on Tuesday,
he said on Twitter the time may be right for him to reconsider the South Jersey city and the hotels he left long behind, all except for his name:
Trump told the Post that he feels badly for the people who remain in Atlantic City and who have lost their jobs.
"So many people are being laid off in Atlantic City, there’s so many of them closing up," said Trump. "I will take a good, serious look."
Trump also tweeted this week that the seaside city "lost its magic" after he left years ago and blamed the issues on "bad decisions by the pols over the years — airport, convention center, etc."
But Trump may not be the only developer looking at Atlantic City, The Star-Ledger says. There are many interested buyers hoping to snap up the shuttered-up oceanfront properties at rock-bottom prices. For example, Florida investor Glenn Straub has made a $90 million bid for the Revel Casino property and is also interested in the former Showboat casino,
reports Bloomberg News.
Meanwhile, the city's unemployment rate is at about 13 percent, or twice the state average, reports The Star-Ledger, as some 8,000 casino workers have lost their jobs.
However, there may be value in the former casino properties even without their craps tables and slots machines, as they also include valuable hotel and meeting space that could be leading Trump, Straub, and other investors to gamble on the massive properties.
Atlantic City Alliance told The Star-Ledger that while the casinos are closing, there are still plenty of tourists on the boardwalk, and hotel occupancy remained at about 90 percent for much of the summer.
City leaders are working to expand the city's image away from its being a smaller Las Vegas by the ocean to instead being considered as a convention hub and tourism destination that's located just a short drive from New York City and Philadelphia, the paper reported.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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