Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino Atlantic City, Famed Boxing Venue, To Be Demolished
By Robert Brizel, Head Real Combat Media Boxing Correspondent
Atlantic City, NJ (June 13th, 2020)– Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey, which opened on May 14, 1984, as Harrah’s Boardwalk or Harrah’s at Trump Plaza by Trump Entertainment Resorts, will have its casino and both hotel towers imploded by June 2021 under a deal by billionaire owner Carl Icahn, after the city of Atlantic City and Atlantic city Mayor Marty Small Sr. went to court seeking an emergency order. Debris from the upper floors of the dilapidated Trump Plaza hotel towers continues to fall haphazardly on the boardwalk below. Only the hotel parking lot and adjacent Rainforest Café will remain. The cost of the implosion somewhere over 14 million dollars on its 2.6 acres plot adjacent to Caesars. Trump Plaza was a 39-floor hotel with 906 rooms and 86,000 square feet of casino space, according to the last online Trump Plaza website.
The city of Atlantic City wants the implosion fully completed by February 2021, so as not to interfere with the summer tourist season, this after the current summer 2020 tourist season has been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. All nine of Atlantic City’s hotel casinos have been closed since March 2020 due to the coronavirus. No reopening date in 2020 has yet been scheduled, leaving thousands of area workers idled.
Construction on the resort by Donald Trump began in June 1982. By the time Trump Plaza closed in 2014, Trump no longer had a financial stake in it.
With 614 rooms, seven restaurants, a health club, a 750 seats showroom, and a 60 thousand square foot casino, Trump bought out the Harrah’s Corporation interest in the venue for 70 million dollars in 1986. The property received a 25 million dollars mortgage on its parking garage in 1991. At a prepackaged bankruptcy in 1992, Trump exchanged 250 million dollars in creditor debt for 200 million dollars in creditor debt with a lower interest rate, along with 100 million dollars of preferred stock.
In 1989, Trump bought the unfinished Penthouse Boardwalk Hotel and Casino, a property which included a former Holiday Inn, then spent 63 million dollars to purchase the bankrupt Atlantis Hotel Casino next to the Atlantic City Convention Center, a property which later became the Hyatt Regency. Trump Plaza underwent a 43 million dollars expansion in 1993, the former Penthouse property was demolished to add 30 thousand feet of gaming space, and the former Holiday Inn renovated to add 362 rooms as the Trump Plaza’s East Tower.
In 1995, Trump acquired ownership of the Trump Plaza and Trump Regency. In May 1996 Trump opened Trump World’s Fair, after a 48 million dollar renovation of the Trump Regency, with an added casino connected to Trump Plaza by an upper level loggia footbridge.
A February 2013 planned sale of the Trump Plaza property for 20 million dollars to the California company Menelo Group fell through when Mr. Icahn, the principal lender for Trump Plaza’s mortgage, declined the sale at the rock bottom proposed price. In August 2014, Mr. Trump sued to have his name removed from Trump Plaza after the property fell into disrepair. On September 16, 2014, Trump Plaza closed, leaving approximately 1000 workers unemployed. Carl Icahn bought out the property deed for the land the Trump Plaza sits on in December 2018, simultaneously terminating the property’s complicated lease.
Gambling was legalized in Atlantic City in 1976. Boxing and MMA events began in Atlantic City in 1985. That year, with New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame member Donald Trump leading the way, a booming Atlantic City hosted an incredible 142 boxing promotions, knocking nearby Philadelphia’s boxing scene out of the box. Spending millions to bring in whales to see boxing super events was the motivation, as the whales would drop many times more at the casino tables after being lured in to watch big time boxing events.
The adjacent Rainforest Café on the Atlantic City Boardwalk owned by Landry’s remains open on a under a court agreement brokered by a Federal judge in 2014 which gave the restaurant a 20 years lease. The restaurant had to build walls separating itself from the Trump Plaza, and assume independent trash service.
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