South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Auction to help implode former Trump casino
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — One of President Donald Trump’s former Atlantic City casinos will likely be blown up in 2021, and for the right amount of money, you could be the one to press the button that brings it down.
The demolition of the formerTrumpPlaza casino will become a fundraiser to benefit the Boys & Girls Club of Atlantic City that the mayor hopes will raise in excess of $1 million
Opened in 1984, Trump’s former casino was closed in 2014 and has fallen into sucha state of disrepair that demolitionworkbeganthis year. The remainder of the structure is expected to be dynamited in February.
“Some of Atlantic City’s iconic moments happened there, but on his way out, Donald Trump openly mockedAtlanticCity, saying he made a lot of money and then got out,” said Mayor Marty Small. “I wanted to use the demolition of this place to raise money for charity.”
The Boys & Girls Club has hired a professional auction company to solicit bids through Jan. 19, when the top bidswillberevealed anda live auction will determine a winner.
The organization provides after-school and summer recreation, education and career-training programs for Atlantic City children and teens.
Trump, then a real estate developer, opened
the casino at the center of Atlantic City’s Boardwalk where the Atlantic City Expressway deposited cars entering the resort. It was the site of many high-profile boxing matches, which Trump would regularly attend.
It closed in 2014, one of four Atlantic City casinos to shut down that year, followedby another former Trump casino, the Taj Mahal, in 2016. That property has since reopened as theHardRock casino.
The third casino Trump used to own here, Trump Marina, was sold to Texas billionaire Tilman Fertitta in 2011 and is now the GoldenNugget.
Trumpcutmost ties with Atlantic City in 2009 aside from a 10% fee for the use of his name on what were then three casinos in the city. That stake was extinguished when billionaire Carl Icahn took ownership of thecompanyout ofbank
ruptcy court in 2016.
Trump Plaza has sat empty for six years and has been deteriorating. Earlier this year, large pieces of the facade broke loose from one of the hotel towers and came crashing to the ground. In one storm, additional debris fell from the structure onto the Boardwalk.
Icahn owns the former Trump Plaza building and has agreed to the demolition. Small said he is eager to discusspotential uses for the land with Icahn once the casinoisgone, including some sort of family attraction.
“Notoftendoesinner-city oceanfront land open up,” the mayor said. “We have onechanceto get this right.”
Thelast casino implosion inAtlantic Citywas in 2007 when the former Sands casino was dynamited to make way for a new casino-hotel project that ultimatelywas never built.