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The site of MGM Mirage's proposed casino lies between Harrah's (buildings in foreground) and the Borgata (tower in background).
MGM Has New Old Plans for Atlantic City
By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
ATLANTIC CITY — Las Vegas gaming giant MGM Mirage, which has tantalized Atlantic City for a decade with plans for casinos that were never built, said Wednesday that it may develop a new megaresort on a 71-acre site in the Marina District.
The company's board of directors has approved $20 million to design a project that would rise next to Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, the upscale gaming hall co-owned by MGM with Boyd Gaming Corp.
Terry Lanni, MGM chairman and chief executive officer, said planning work and regulatory approvals will take about two years to complete, with construction expected to start sometime in 2009. It would take about 30 months to build.
“The focus in Atlantic City is on the 71 acres next to Borgata. That's our primary focus,” Lanni said while discussing the project during a conference call with gaming analysts. “We're going to develop that project on our own as a wholly owned entity, and we have been given approval by our board to move ahead with preliminary work.”
MGM executives stressed that the project is in the early stages of development, hardly an ironclad guarantee that the casino will actually be built. The size, scope and cost have not yet been determined, although MGM's $7 billion CityCenter project on the Las Vegas Strip will serve as an inspiration.
“We've got some exciting concepts for that property. We're currently discussing and analyzing those,” said Gordon Absher, MGM vice president of public affairs.
MGM's Atlantic City project isn't expected to match the scale or cost of the CityCenter development, but would include similar elements. Scheduled to open in late 2009, CityCenter will feature casino space, hotels, condominiums, retail shops, restaurants and entertainment all wrapped up in one huge project.
Luxury condos, high-end retail, a noncasino hotel and a large entertainment arena are among the attractions under consideration to complement the gaming space in Atlantic City.
“This is the world of possibilities,” Absher said. “We're looking at high density, mixed use and possibly applying that concept to that land.”
Final plans are expected to take about a year to prepare. MGM would next submit the project to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection for a Coastal Area Facilities Review Act permit, a key regulation governing construction projects at the shore. Lanni estimated that the CAFRA review would take another year to complete.
MGM already owns the proposed development site next to Borgata. The same property was supposed to be the site of a billion-dollar casino that MGM had proposed several years ago but abandoned in 2002.
MGM has had an on-again, off-again relationship with Atlantic City for 10 years. It once planned to build a lavish gaming resort on a barren site in the South Inlet, only to kill that project to focus on the Marina District. Plans for the Marina then failed. Now MGM is resurrecting the Marina District site for its latest project.
“As we've said for some time, we're going to develop that site without a partner,” Absher said. “We're very enthusiastic about that parcel of land.”
MGM's Atlantic City holdings already include 50 percent ownership of Borgata, the Las Vegas-style megacasino operated by Boyd Gaming. Absher said MGM is happy with its partnership with Boyd for Borgata.
Larry Mullin, Borgata's president and chief operating officer, declined to comment on MGM's proposed casino. Mullin, though, characterized MGM as “a great partner” in Borgata's ownership.
At the same time it is looking to build its own new casino, MGM has been talking to the American Indian tribe that owns Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut about a possible casino project on another parcel it owns in Atlantic City's Marina District.
That site, comprised of 14 acres next to Trump Marina Hotel Casino, is part of an April 24, 2006, memorandum of agreement between MGM and the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation. The agreement is for potential joint ventures between MGM and the Pequots for projects in Connecticut, Atlantic City and Las Vegas.
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