Beyond Blatstein: These 12 new Atlantic City projects could be game changers beginning this summer.

ATLANTIC CITY — A lot of people roll into Atlantic City touting the next game changer.

Like developer Bart Blatstein, whose $100 million water park broke ground in January alongside Showboat, with all the usual Blatstein high-heeled hoopla and publicity, and the promise of a 2023 opening.

But in the meantime, there are other, quieter game changers in the works. As Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr. said in his recent rousing call-and-response State of the City address delivered in a Caesars Hotel ballroom, not all of them have to change the game that much to make a difference.

“Everyone wants to talk about a grand slam,” Small told the crowd. “But Atlantic City, we’re in position where we need everything. We need some singles, some doubles. We need the sacrifice bunt. We need to get hit by a pitch. We need to walk.”

We need to get hit by a pitch. It could be another in a century-long series of slogans for Atlantic City’s occasionally self-deprecating, occasionally aspirational dream-chasing.

It fit the gambling town by the ocean exactly. From defying Prohibition to Miss America to casinos to all of the various showmen-entrepreneurs who have come to town with their latest big ideas and dizzying funding strategies, Atlantic City welcomes you.

Here’s a look at a dozen projects, big and small, planned or underway or even about to open, for Atlantic City, which seems to have gathered some post-pandemic momentum.

(These are plans for adding amenities to the town, as opposed to 2021′s highly celebrated accomplishment, imploding Trump Plaza, which has left a still-empty prime lot adjacent to Boardwalk Hall, one of several “stranded projects” Small’s vowing to push off the back burners this year.)

Despite the extended baseball analogy, it’s mini-golf that has people excited. The spring opening of North Beach Mini Golf is being hailed as a sign that a long-barren neighborhood across the inlet from Brigantine may be on its way back.

Once a neighborhood of families and iconic old-time establishments like Hackney’s, the Inlet area has sported vast tracts of vacant lots through several administrations.

But the section of the Boardwalk and seawall that famously broke apart during Hurricane Sandy has been renovated and now connects around Caspian Point (a tract of land owned by Jared Kushner, and another so-called stranded project) all the way to Gardner’s Basin. It’s just lovely.

At Euclid Avenue, a block away from the Absecon Lighthouse and adjacent to Altman Playground (also slated for improvements, including a tennis court that may or may not soon get a net), the Intrieri brothers are constructing a two-level mini golf and bike rental, with a deck connecting to the Boardwalk.

Spurred by the success of their short-term rental properties in the neighborhood, where Mike Intrieri also purchased a home, the brothers believe the neighborhood is ready for revival.

Nearby on Atlantic Avenue, developer Wasseem Boraie’s 600 North Beach rental development has been popular enough that he’s planning 700 North Beach, a high-rise and 24 townhouses.

As Airbnb operators, the Intrieris know that people are eager to experience Atlantic City beyond casinos and do things that make them feel “like a local.” Cue mini-golf, fishing courtesy of One Stop Bait Shop, the Caspian Avenue beach, Tony Boloney’s, even a Hot Bagels.

They’re hoping a nearby city-owned plot could even be transformed with recreation — maybe some pickleball courts like the kind that have hundreds waiting for a turn in other Shore towns. Why not A.C.?

“We’re both very bullish on the cool factor of Atlantic City,” said Nick Intrieri.

While there have been numerous proposals to bring back Kentucky Avenue, once a bustling home of Black culture known as “KY. and the Curb,” this one has the backing of Los Angeles-based, Grammy-winning record producer Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins.

Jerkins, a Pleasantville, N.J., native, envisions recording and sound studios, educational opportunities, and a ground-floor satellite location of Atlantic City’s African American Heritage Museum.

Museum founder Ralph Hunter said the Kentucky Avenue site would focus on Atlantic City’s historic “Northside,” a thriving and vibrant Black neighborhood once the home of doctors, lawyers, restaurants, and clubs. He said they were hoping to be further along by the time the national NAACP convention comes to Atlantic City on July 14-20, but the process has been slow.

“It’s been a long, tough battle to pull it off,” he said. “We have to be able to tell the Northside story on the Northside.”

One of Atlantic City’s true marquee destination restaurants, Kelsey’s supper club and soul-food restaurant on Pacific Avenue is beginning plans to expand into a new two-story building with a rooftop deck, across the street from its current location.

One of a handful of non-casino restaurants where locals and visitors alike line up daily at 4 p.m. to get a happy hour seat, Kelsey’s never seems to have enough space. Small said the project marked a new push to get the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority to invest in minority-owned businesses. “Bluntly, [the CRDA] has never done anything for minority businesses,” Small said.

Weirdly, the Ocean Casino Hotel has space for about 400 new rooms in the center of its tower, 12 floors unbuilt since opening in 2012 as Revel. With its turbulent history behind it, new owners are not only admitting that yes, you can see right into the center of the building at night where rooms should be, but they’re also committing $75 million to complete the tower.

Over on Tennessee and New York Avenues, home to several successful venues known collectively as the “Orange Loop,” plans continue for additional rental properties, boutique hotels, and restaurants, including the Cardinal Hotel & Restaurant.

When new owners at Bally’s decided not to continue with the Dougherty family’s popular Harry’s Oyster Bar in the courtyard between the Dennis Towers, just off the Boardwalk, locals and visitors alike sulked. But their newly announced plans might make everyone feel better (and there’s always Knife & Fork and Docks Oyster House to get a Dougherty fix).

Bally’s spokesperson Diane Spiers says the Yard will open this summer. It will occupy the 10,000-foot courtyard space, half of that a glass indoor-outdoor structure modeled after beer halls in Philadelphia and New York.

Its modern industrial design will feature entertainment, craft beer, gastropub dining, lounge seating, and games in a park-like setting.

It will join the Boardwalk Biergarten and the Tennessee Avenue Beer Hall in making Atlantic City an easy place for a trendy brew crawl. “The Yard is a game changer,” Paul Juliano, Bally’s senior vice president of operation, said, naturally.

This massive $2.7 billion project would definitely land in the grand slam arena. Small touted it at his address with a separate video, even though no deal has been completed for the waterfront property.

Billed as a “zero net carbon” development, the residential, retail, recreational micro-grid development would occupy Bader Field, Atlantic City’s old municipal airstrip. It would cater toward the “motor sports enthusiast” and feature a 2.44-mile driving track meeting FIA standards; 1,100 duplex, mid-, and high-rise luxury condominiums; a 160-room hotel; and 400 workforce/affordable townhouses and apartments. It would seek to create vocational opportunities and bring in jobs.

It would be a “showcase for resiliency, sustainable and progressive building design” and a “model for energy generation and distribution,” according to the four partners, two local and two Los Angeles-based, known as DEEM.

“We’re trying to capture a number of opportunities for the City of Atlantic City,” said Los Angeles-based investor Erick Feitshans, who noted the property would need costly environmental remediation. “The auto piece is just one of them.”

He said the group created its proposal based on needs cited by Jim Johnson when he was Gov. Phil Murphy’s special counsel in Atlantic City. Feitshans acknowledged there was skepticism about such a big project, but said, “We believe that if you provide the city with all the normal things a city should have, people will populate that.”

Residents are thrilled that a big-name supermarket is coming to town, especially after the disappointment of Renaissance Plaza, where a discount Save-a-Lot is under new ownership, but the CVS has closed. The liquor store thrives.

Officials finally broke ground on a ShopRite near the Convention Center, run by Village Super Markets Inc., which is leasing the space for $1 a year from the state. It is expected to take 13 to 15 months to complete.

Small also said the old Ruffu Ford lot near Bader Field will be turned into a waterfront park, in conjunction with Atlantic County.

(And not for nothing, officials in town are gearing up for a full-on pitch to be the East Coast’s top recreational cannabis destination, once the state finalizes the regulations. To be continued.)

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In one of those we’ll take it, hit-by-a-pitch moves, the long vacant Pat’s Steaks building at 1100 Atlantic will be taken over by a Popa Pizza.

“I know a lot of you burst out laughing because you know we are doing really, really well if this place got developed,” Small said.

To achieve this long-sought-after goal of synchronizing traffic lights along Atlantic and Pacific Avenues so motorists don’t have to repeatedly stop at red lights, the city has agreed to take a road diet (sacrifice bunt?) for the funding, which will turn Atlantic Avenue into a two-lane street with turning lanes.