Philly developer Bart Blatstein now controls three full blocks of Atlantic City
The completion of the assemblage could be a sign that Blatstein is scaling up his redevelopment plans at and around the Showboat.
Developer Bart Blatstein has acquired the final parcel in an assemblage of Atlantic City properties stretching three blocks inland from his Showboat hotel at the Boardwalk.
Blatstein paid $600,000 in February for the parcel at 805 Atlantic Ave., the only property he didn’t already own within the three-block footprint that also includes a parking lot and the beachside tract with the former casino itself, according to records filed with the Atlantic County Clerk’s Office.
The completion of the assemblage could be a sign that Blatstein is scaling up his redevelopment plans at and around the Showboat, said Robert Ambrose, a South Jersey-based gaming consultant.
The developer previously said he planned to build a casino tower beside the Showboat on a thin strip of land facing the Boardwalk at 160 S. New Jersey Ave. That was intended to circumvent a deed restriction that bars gambling within the existing Showboat tower.
Now, Ambrose said, “I could only speculate that bigger things are on the horizon.”
Blatstein did not respond to a message seeking comment about his plans.
The newly acquired parcel is on a block bounded by Delaware and Maryland Avenues, between Atlantic and Arctic Avenues. When Blatstein bought the Showboat in 2016, the two-tiered parking structure that dominates that block was included in the transaction. But three other parcels — 805 Atlantic among them — were separately owned.
The other two were a commercial building with a stone facade and castle-like turrets at 10 N. Delaware Ave., which he bought in December 2017 for $125,000, and a dirt lot at 808 Arctic, which Blatstein bought for $20,000 in January 2019, records show.
The 805 Atlantic acquisition occurred shortly after Blatstein said in an interview with the Associated Press that he had sold his pier-top Playground shopping mall at Arkansas Avenue to an affiliate of Caesars Entertainment Corp. of Las Vegas for an undisclosed sum.
Documents recorded with the clerk’s office show that his $33.8 million mortgage against the pier property with Toronto-based Romspen Mortgage LP was paid off or otherwise satisfied in January, although no record of the sale itself has been filed.
Caesars, which had confirmed the transaction to the AP, did not discuss the deal in its quarterly earnings disclosures this week.
A Caesars spokesperson did not respond to a message seeking information about the transaction.