Las Vegas property veteran Bruce Deifik has acquired the Revel casino in Atlantic City, beginning a new chapter for what’s been one of the region’s most notorious real estate debacles of recent years and, perhaps, for the South Jersey Shore resort town itself.
Deifik said in an interview with the Inquirer that he closed on the failed 47-story, 900-guest-room casino resort last week, declining to provide further details ahead of an official announcement planned for later Monday.
Deifik’s group, ACOWRE LLC, paid $200 million for the casino parcel and three related properties, seller Glenn Straub of Wellington, Fla., said in a news release. Straub’s company Polo North Country Club Inc. retained ownership of dozens of other Atlantic City properties, he said.
The new owner plans to reopen the property this summer, Straub said. Moody’s Investors Service said in a research note last month tied to Deifik’s plan borrow some $255 million to put toward acquisition and renovation costs that his group plans to spend another $175 million to ready the property for guests.
The resort, built at a cost of $2.4 billion, has been vacant since September 2014, when it closed due to financial troubles after operating for only 2½ years.
Straub bought the Revel out of bankruptcy for $82 million in April 2015. His years as the casino’s owner were marked by legal bickering with the operator of the property’s specially built power plant — which plunged the property into darkness until he agreed to buy the facility for $30 million — and with the state Casino Control Commission over whether he needed to obtain a gaming license of his own for the property to be operated as a casino.
Deifik comes to Atlantic City after a career that included steering American Nevada Co., the property-development division of Henderson, Nev.-based Greenspun Corp., through the Great Recession in one of the nation’s hardest real estate markets.
He is now president and chief executive of Denver-based Integrated Properties Inc., which developed the Hyatt Grand Champions Resort in Palm Springs and central Denver’s 16M mixed-use development.
Deifik is also cofounder of Las Vegas-based Fifth Street Gaming LLC, operator of properties including the Downtown Grand Las Vegas, formerly the Lady Luck Hotel & Casino, which is owned by development giant CIM Group, based in Los Angeles.
The developer faces significant challenges in transforming the opaque glass tower into a profitable enterprise. Moody’s said in its note that the venture may struggle, at least at first, to attract a big enough slice of Atlantic City’s diminished ranks of casino visitors as it seeks to repay its debts amid competition from other properties.
But if it’s successful, it could expand the market for gaming in the city, boosting revenue for schools and other city services, while increasing the region’s employment, said Marc H. Pfeiffer, a former New Jersey state and local government official who now serves as assistant director at Rutgers’ Bloustein Local Government Research Center in New Brunswick.
“The rising tide can lift everybody, as long as the market expands,” he said.
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