New Mgm Casino Atlantic City
Editor’s note: Borgata AC will reopen on July 26 after four-plus months of being closed. This story was written prior to the reopening announcement.
MGM Grand Atlantic City was a cancelled-planned resort casino by MGM Mirage in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It was to be located on 72 acres (29 ha) of land between the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa (which MGM owns) and Harrah's Atlantic City. The MGM Grand Hotel Atlantic City will be the twelfth addition to MGM's casino hotels and is expected to be the most opulent facility to date. MGM owns 50 percent of The Borgata Hotel Casino Spa in Atlantic City, a venture that's proved to be extremely successful for the group.
Borgata is Atlantic City’s top-performing property.
In 2020, however, the MGM-owned hotel and casino is facing its biggest challenge to date.
Recovering from what will end up being at least a two-plus month shutdown takes serious planning. And this is new territory for Atlantic City casinos.
MGM Resorts International took a big step this week by sharing details of its “Seven-Point Safety Plan.”
As we prepare for the moment we can re-open our doors, safety is our first priority. That is why we have created comprehensive health and safety protocols outlined in our “Seven-Point Safety Plan.” Learn more about this important update: https://t.co/4WiwCdQAdfpic.twitter.com/xoXeEGZcJ0
— MGM Resorts (@MGMResortsIntl) May 12, 2020
The full report provides details of the multilayered set of protocols and procedures designed in conjunction with medical and scientific experts. The primary goals are:
- Deter the spread of the coronavirus.
- Protect customers and employees.
- Rapidly respond to potential new cases.
The plan applies to MGM’s domestic properties.
New Mgm Casino Atlantic City Atlantic City
Borgata and its 7-point plan
Before the Marina District property doors are unlocked, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy will need to give the all-clear.
The exact date is unknown at this point.
While waiting for the return date to be announced, Borgata will be taking preliminary steps to prepare for guests and employees.
Here is a closer look at the plan:
- Screening, temperature checks and employee training.
- Mandatory masks and personal protection equipment (PPE).
- Six-foot physical distancing policy will be in place, wherever feasible.
- Hand-washing and enhanced sanitization.
- Heating ventilation and air conditioning controls and air quality.
- Incident response protocols.
- Digital innovations.
Guests planning to make a summer visit to Borgata will be asked to abide by a self-screening protocol.
This means if a person has been exposed to the coronavirus, the guest is strongly urged to follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines for self-quarantine and not travel.
All MGM Resorts employees will be required to wear an approved mask while on the property.
Customers will be strongly encouraged to wear them in public areas. The Borgata will supply them free of charge if needed.
In terms of digital innovation, the Borgata is reimagining the guest experience through technology. This includes contactless options for guests, eliminating or reducing the need for waiting in line.
Sorry, no green light yet
With Memorial Day weekend fast approaching, there is a chance the beach will open before the casinos.
The only fact at this point is Borgata is accepting reservations as of June 1. But like with May, there is no guarantee.
As expected, the lack of Atlantic City casino revenue is a crushing blow to the Garden State’s bottom line.
April revenue collections have declined nearly 60 percent as compared to last April – an unprecedented $3.5 billion.
These numbers reflect a lot of economic activity from March – including the weeks before we began the systematic shuttering of our greater economy. pic.twitter.com/ctSpPPKrvf
— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) May 13, 2020
The post-pandemic recovery process is almost guaranteed to extend into 2021. For now, the road to recovery is the focus.
Like Caesars Entertainmentdid earlier this week, establishing health and safety guidelines provides a head start.
Bill Hornbuckle, the acting CEO and president of MGM Resorts, said the company is putting health and safety at the “center of everything we do.”
“Our properties will not look the way they used to for a while, and that’s not only OK, it’s critically important,” said Hornbuckle.
“We will continue providing the hospitality experiences we are known for, but we must do so safely. We will continue working with experts and following guidance from the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and government officials and regulators as we evolve these protocols based on the latest information.”
Borgata dining and entertainment
If and when Borgata opens in time for the prime summer season, what amenities will be available?
The property includes upscale restaurant concepts from Wolfgang Puck, Bobby Flay and Michael Symon. But as far as the seven-point plan goes, there is a brief mention of dining protocols.
Digital menus will be available to view on personal mobile devices via QR code. Virtual queues will be in place for guests when immediate seating is unavailable. Guests will receive a text message notification when their table is ready.
It doesn’t address which places will be open or the seating capacity.
Atlantic City New Casino 2018
Borgata also has a stacked summer entertainment lineup scheduled for the Event Center and Music Box. Being that the concert industry is currently operating in a virtual-only mode, an update is likely coming soon.
The events calendar is still showing Ken Jeong (July 11) and Jerry Seinfeld (Aug. 8). The latter is rescheduled from April.
Borgata online casino still open
There is little doubt Atlantic City customers are missing casino gambling.
The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement released April numbers late Wednesday afternoon.
Clearly, the MGM online casino and Borgata online casinoproducts (and other brands operating under the license) are building a following.
The license holder reported $15.8 million in online casino revenue, good enough for an eye-opening 190.5% year-over-year increase.
The number is good enough for third behindGolden Nugget ($27.6 million) and Resorts Digital ($16. million).
And, not surprisingly, the market as a whole earned an all-time high of a tad under $80 million.
It shatters the previous record of $64.8 million set in March.
But to reach its full potential, Borgata needs the land-based casino to be operating simultaneously with the clicks.
As strong as the online numbers were, the lack of the $53.3 million earned on the gambling floor shows the reality of the shutdown.
With June being a little more than two weeks away, maybe there is uplifting news on the horizon.
Ken Rosevear's next project, the MGM Grand Atlantic City Casino, could be his most ambitious yet
Jan. 6--LAS VEGAS -- Ken Rosevear has spanned the globe in his many searches for the next casino hot spot.
And when he finds such a spot, MGM Mirage's president of development likes to go over the top. Way over the top.
'It's not just about building them and they will come,' Rosevear said. 'You have to build them beyond expectation.'
He has developed 29 casinos worldwide. Among his credits: New York New York in Las Vegas, Monte Casino in Johannesburg, South Africa, and MGM Grand Macao in South China.
His next project, on a 72-acre parcel in Atlantic City's Marina District -- the $5 billion MGM Grand Atlantic City Casino -- could be his most ambitious.
'It must be a postcard,' Rosevear said during a recent interview inside an executive conference room at the MGM-owned Bellagio that was papered with renderings of his new Atlantic City extravaganza.
His goal: 'To make an iconic building that will be recognized as the new skyline of Atlantic City,' he said.
For the first time publicly, Rosevear went into detail about what $5 billion affords.
He said the Atlantic City casino is on a similar scale with MGM's $7.8 billion CityCenter complex, which is under construction on the Las Vegas Strip, not too far from Rosevear's Bellagio office.
MGM Grand Atlantic City will be Y-shaped -- like the Mirage, Mandalay Bay and Monte Carlo casinos in Las Vegas -- a shape most noticeable in an aerial view.
It will incorporate design features of other Rosevear-developed casinos. For instance, the casino will have a circular floor plan -- like his New York New York casino -- to keep foot traffic moving.
The golden hues of the three towers will be graduated, the bands of color narrowing as they go up, 'as if disappearing into the sky,' Rosevear said. Just like the MGM Grand Macao.
But unique to MGM Grand Atlantic City will be a spa rising 450 feet above the ground that links all three towers. Rosevear said such a design 'will allow people to walk to the spa directly from the towers.' The spa will be two levels with a 360-degree view.
'The idea is to make MGM Grand Atlantic City three times bigger and make it taller, with a combination of permanent and moving shows . . . so that it's an ever-changing, must-see spectacle,' he said. 'To take it to a new level.'
The opulence of MGM Grand Atlantic City and CityCenter speaks to the continuing strength of the casino industry and the unabated national and international spending sprees among some major U.S. gaming companies despite a gloomy economy.
Casino companies that were not acquired by private-equity firms in leveraged buyouts and had their balance sheets burdened with large amounts of debt 'have a lot of capacity to develop in good markets where they find opportunity,' said Andrew Zarnett of Deutsche Bank AG. 'They are able to do $5-billion-type developments at the same time the economy is contracting or getting weaker.'
Much of the cash for this came from foreign capital, which flooded into the United States because of the dollar's weakness, noted Adam Steinberg, a gaming analyst with Morgan Joseph & Co. Inc., of New York. The Bloomberg Gaming Industry Index, which measures the performance of casino company stocks, showed they gained nearly 7 percent in 2007, despite a steep November swoon. The S&P 500 index gained 3.5 percent for the year.
MGM Mirage is a major recipient of foreign investment. Dubai World -- a holding company for the Persian Gulf state of Dubai that last year acquired department store Barneys New York Inc. from Jones Apparel Group Inc., of Bristol, Bucks County, for $825 million -- is investing more than $5 billion in MGM Mirage.
In October, Dubai World acquired about $1.2 billion of MGM stock; in November, it paid $2.7 billion for a 50 percent stake in the CityCenter project; and in December, it acquired an additional five million shares of MGM stock for $424 million. And it plans to buy more.
The deal removed more than $3 billion in debt from MGM's books and will enable MGM to fully finance the $5 billion Atlantic City casino, which was announced Oct. 11, and forge ahead on other projects internationally, said chief financial officer Dan D'Arrigo.
'The deal really freed up our balance sheet to allow us to move forward in Atlantic City sooner than we would have been able to before,' he said.
At least two more super casinos will be built in Atlantic City during the same time as the MGM casino.
Revel Entertainment Group L.L.C. is building a $2 billion casino on the Boardwalk, and Pinnacle Entertainment Inc., of Las Vegas, is developing a $1.5 billion one on the site of the former Sands Casino Hotel. Like MGM, each is targeting a 2012 opening. A fourth casino, by a private-investor group, has been proposed for the Boardwalk's southern end.
'The days of putting up boring-looking concrete buildings with big signs with big red letters are over,' said David G. Schwartz, author of Roll the Bones: The History of Gambling and director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. 'People want the whole fantasy of gambling in a fantasy casino that does not look like an office building. They want to be in a high-class casino.'
There is also another driving force.
'The new destinations in Atlantic City, as well as in Las Vegas, have to rise to a new level to attract a broad range of adults who are looking for a new experience,' said Michael Pollock, publisher of Gaming Industry Observer and managing director of Spectrum Gaming Group L.L.C., of Linwood, N.J. 'It's essentially the way to succeed in the market now.'
That is Rosevear's game plan. He enlisted world-renown architect Kohn Pedersen Fox to carry out his vision. He described the new casino as being for everybody.
'This is a very large casino,' Rosevear said. 'It will be among the largest in the country, so you can't be too narrow in your demographic. That's why I've broken the casino into different areas.'
One will be off the Race and Sports Book area; another will be more of a daytime casino; and a third section will feature entertainment with a nightclub.
Mgm Resorts Atlantic City
The casino will have an indoor and outdoor pool, upscale retail and restaurants. The tallest tower -- 800 feet -- will be reserved strictly for V.I.P. guests and will be among the tallest buildings in New Jersey.
Rosevear has been making regular trips to Atlantic City since 1995, when he joined MGM from the former Caesars Entertainment Inc., and when MGM began assembling the 72-acre parcel.
He has 60 acres to work with initially. He said future expansion on the remaining 12 acres could be for residential, another hotel, condos, an entertainment arena, or more retail.
Gambling mogul Steve Wynn partnered with Boyd Gaming Corp., of Las Vegas, in May 1996 to develop the Borgata, near Harrah's and Trump Marina casinos, all in the Marina District. During the predevelopment phase, MGM bought Wynn's Mirage Resorts Inc. in May 2000, and MGM Mirage became Boyd's partner on the project. Instead of building a $750 million casino with 1,200 hotel rooms, they decided on a $1.1 billion Las Vegas-style mega-casino with 2,000 rooms.
'Great developers in the world have to take a little bit of a leap of faith that if they do something so spectacular, the market will respond,' Rosevear said.
It clearly did. The vertical, golden-hued Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa debuted in July 2003 and has been Atlantic City's most profitable casino ever since.
'This clearly positions the Marina to compete favorably with other properties in Atlantic City as well as other emerging jurisdictions,' said former Borgata chief executive officer Robert Boughner, on having MGM Grand move in next door. 'We are delighted that it is now coming to fruition.'
The fortunes of the two casinos will literally be linked. MGM Grand will be connected to the Borgata by an enclosed walkway.
(Philadelphia Inquirer, The (KRT) -- 01/07/08)