In Atlantic City, ground broken for first new casino in 10 years

John Curran

Thursday, Sept. 21, 2000 | 11:21 a.m.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - It's no mirage: The first new casino here in more than 10 years will soon be under construction.

Boyd Gaming Corp. officials were to break ground Thursday night for The Borgata, a 2,010-room mega-resort in the marina district that will take three years to build.

The $1 billion project represents the first ripple of a long-awaited "second wave" of casino development that was promised in 1996, when Mirage Resorts Inc., MGM Grand Inc. and Boyd Gaming all announced plans to build Las Vegas-style casino resorts.

All but Boyd's project, however, have crapped out.

Frustrated by delays in land acquisition, MGM Grand's plan for a Boardwalk fizzled. Mirage Resorts Inc., which had triggered a gold rush by Las Vegas operators when it announced plans for a $1 billion project here, sold out to Mirage this year.

The new company, MGM Mirage, may still forge ahead with Mirage's planned Le Jardin casino. But for now, The Borgata - a joint venture of Boyd Gaming and MGM Mirage - looks like the only sure thing.

When completed, the 40-story tower will be Atlantic City's biggest casino hotel and the first new one to open since Trump Taj Mahal in 1990.

Boyd Gaming President Donald Snyder said Thursday the company is even more bullish on Atlantic City than it was four years ago.

"When you look at the steady growth of this market in the face of tremendous competition from Connecticut and other places, it speaks to the resiliency of it," he said.

Situated on a 30-acre site near Trump Marina and Harrah's Atlantic City, it will also be the first to benefit from the $330 million Atlantic City-Brigantine Connector, a 2.2-mile road-and-tunnel link between the foot of the Atlantic City Expressway and the marina district.

City officials are grateful to finally have something to show for the controversy surrounding the tunnel project and the other on-again, off-again projects.

"At one point, it looked like there might be two or three major mega-resorts being built at the same time," said Mayor James Whelan.

"We would've welcomed that. But now, they'll be better spaced, which isn't the worst thing in the world either. The construction workers in this area are happy about it stretching over eight years instead of having to import labor from everywhere on the East Coast, which is what they would have had to do if everybody built at once."

Boyd Gaming, based in Las Vegas, owns or operates 11 casinos in Nevada, Mississippi, Illinois, Indiana and Louisiana.

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