Glenn Straub, a real estate developer based in Palm Beach County, said next month he will reopen a casino hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, that closed in 2014.
Wellington-based Straub has renamed the former Revel Casino Hotel, now branded as TEN, and he told New Jersey casino authorities that he will reopen the property Feb. 20 with or without a casino license.
The New Jersey Casino Control Commission has been trying to determine if Straub needs a casino license to reopen the former Revel Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, which he has renovated and redeveloped.
Straub contends he doesn’t need a license because he intends to lease the the property’s casino space to an outside operator. “I’m just a mall owner,” he told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
He paid $82 million for the former Revel hotel, which cost $2.4 billion to build. Revel opened in 2012, then descended into bankruptcy twice before closing in 2014.
Straub told the state Casino Control Commission in a public hearing last week that he is ready to open the property’s hotel rooms, restaurants and showrooms, but has no schedule for reopening the casino portion of the property now branded as TEN.
Except for the casino, “it’s ready to go,” he told the commission.
Straub has friends in high places: He is in the background of a Twitter-posted photograph of Fabio at the recent New Year’s Eve party at President-elect Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach. [Philadelphia Inquirer] – Mike Seemuth