Atlantic City’s Showboat is reopening — but without a casino

By Wayne Parry, Associated Press

Friday, June 3, 2016 | 2:32 p.m.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — The shuttered Showboat casino hotel will reopen next month — this time as a non-gambling hotel, a developer said today.

Philadelphia developer Bart Blatstein said 852 of the complex's 1,300 rooms will be open to the public in July. The hotel will still be called the Showboat.

"I'm extremely bullish on Atlantic City," Blatstein said. "I've never seen a better opportunity."

Blatstein has been buying non-gambling attractions in Atlantic City, which is desperately trying to reinvent itself as a diversified resort that is far less dependent on gambling.

Last year he bought the former Pier Shops complex on the beachfront and rebranded it as The Playground, a mix of restaurants, bars, nightspots and shopping.

Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian, who has had virtually nothing but bad news as his city nearly ran out of money and is still trying to fight off a state takeover and proposed casinos elsewhere in the state, called the Showboat reopening "great news."

"Bart Blatstein continues to deliver on his promises for redevelopment and revitalization of Atlantic City," Guardian said. "Having Bart and any other developers invest in Atlantic City during this crucial time will help us revitalize the city for many years to come."

Caesars Entertainment closed the still-profitable Showboat casino-hotel on Aug. 31, 2014, the second of four Atlantic City casinos to close that year. The company acted in the name of reducing competition in what it considered an oversaturated market, putting 2,000 workers out of jobs.

Caesars also placed a deed restriction on the Showboat, prohibiting a future buyer from reopening it as a casino. But a competing deed restriction among casinos in the area prohibited the Showboat from being used as anything other than a first-class casino hotel. It was not immediately clear how or whether those conflicting restrictions were resolved, and Blatstein declined to say Friday.

Blatstein decided against adding another casino to the eight that remain and that are just starting to regain their equilibrium following the devastation of 2014.

The developer said he just decided last week that the project was economically feasible. He said he hopes to have the Showboat open by July 4 but acknowledged it could be July 12 or 13 before it is ready.

Blatstein said he is working on several new amenities for the Showboat complex but is not ready to reveal them yet.

He bought the former casino for $23 million in January from Stockton University, which in turn had bought it from Caesars Entertainment, hoping to convert it into a satellite campus. But that plan quickly ran afoul of the competing deed restrictions, and Stockton looked to unload it.

Showboat's next-door neighbor, Revel, shut down two days after the Showboat did. Its new owner, Glenn Straub, is talking about reopening it as a hotel with a scaled-down casino.

Blatstein said he is unfazed by the possibility of a reopened Revel next door.

"Development breeds development," he said. "People bring more people."