Posted on Sun, Nov. 20, 2005
Vegas meets Times Square on beach
Atlantic City's newest attraction will be high-tech neon signs and huge graphic screens for $175 million shopping complex.
By Suzette Parmley
Inquirer Staff Writer
ATLANTIC CITY - Imagine 70,000 square feet of high-tech neon signs and graphics on giant screens glistening over the ocean, a sort of mini-Times Square on a luxury cruise liner.
That sea of signage, stretching from the famed Boardwalk to the beach here, is what Scott Gordon, president of Gordon Group Holdings L.L.C., envisions for the enormous structure now standing on the pier.
"It will give the city a whole new dimension - an attraction to bring people in," said Gordon, the developer behind the $175 million Pier at Caesars luxury shopping and entertainment complex.
But John DiFranco sees something quite different. The manager of Lo Presti's II, a pizzeria four blocks from the Pier, envisions few customers, and even fewer small shop owners along the Boardwalk. He fears most will probably be put out of business by the new Pier, which will be connected to Caesars casino through an enclosed skyway.
"It's bad because everyone will stay inside the casino," DiFranco, 33, said. "Why come out on the cold Boardwalk when you can stay warm inside?"
Looking out the front window of his pizza shop, DiFranco can see the Pier on his left and the $285 million Quarter retail, dining and entertainment complex to his right. The influx of well-heeled tenants has made everything on the Boardwalk more expensive, especially rent, he said.
"It's good for the city, but bad for us," he said. "We can't compete."
The two competing visions will soon play out.
The Pier, in its final phase of construction, is set to open in late spring. Renamed the Forum Shops at the Pier, it will feature 106 stores and more. About 90 will be retail and fashion boutiques, such as Gucci and Louis Vuitton, and it will include 15 nightclubs and restaurants with celebrity-chefs run by Stephen Starr of Philadelphia and Todd English of New York.
"The idea is for us to bring back the luster of the Caesars brand to the Boardwalk," said Carlos Tolosa, Eastern Division president for Harrah's Entertainment Inc., the company that owns Caesars, Showboat, Harrah's and Bally's casinos.
Luster and a whole lot of light. The Gordon Group, which is based in Greenwich, Conn., announced a partnership earlier this month with New York-based Clear Channel Spectacolor to create the look of the advertising on the outside of the Pier.
Spectacolor is known for some of the giant signs that flank New York's Times Square. They include the towering Mr. Peanut on the Marriott Marquis Hotel and the Hershey World of Chocolate overlooking the Crowne Plaza Hotel at Broadway and 48th Street.
Expect similar mega-signs for the four-story Pier, said Gordon, whose father, Sheldon Gordon, developed the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
"It will be quite dramatic," he said, adding that some of the signs will be four stories high.
Michael Forte, president and chief executive officer of Spectacolor, faces a difficult sales challenge. He has been showing renderings of what the Pier will look like for several months to advertisers, mostly in New York.
"When you say, 'Atlantic City,' they still think lots of elderly people on buses," he said. "I have to convince a relatively jaded advertising community that Atlantic City is not what they all think it is."
Hanging huge signs on the Pier would not be a complete departure for Atlantic City or the Pier. Forte said the old pier was strewn with advertising in the early 1900s, and some of the billboards up and down the pier and the Boardwalk have been around for 100 years.
"Atlantic City had infinitely more signs than Times Square in that era," he said. "What the new Pier is doing is bringing that back in a very contemporary and modern way."
The Gordon Group, which took over the site in 2003, is putting the millions back into what was dubbed "Young's Million Dollar Pier" when John L. Young bought it in 1906. Over the years, it went through a series of investors who leased it for different purposes.
From 1950 to 1963, it was leased to Beach Amusement by Max Tubis and Harry Schwartz. They installed amusement rides, carnival attractions, and a miniature golf course.
In 1969, the pier was sold to JEM Corp., which also owned the whole block across from the pier. That land became the site for the Caesars casino, which opened in 1979.
Forte said he was surfing online for old images of Atlantic City when he came across black-and-white photos of the former pier. The photos were part of R.C. Maxwell Co.'s collection of advertising signs that is kept at Duke University's outdoor advertising museum.
When Forte gave his presentation before the city's Zoning and Planning Board two years ago, photos showing a Boardwalk filled with people and the old pier draped in vinyl signs were part of his presentation. The board approved the new Pier project, 7-0.
"People ask about the pier all the time," said Gary Brown, 35, who pushes rolling chairs along the Boardwalk. "Everybody remembers what it was like 40 years ago. They always ask me what the new pier is going to look like."
Located on the 50-yard line of the Boardwalk, Forum Shops at the Pier will measure 800 feet long and 200 feet wide - the equivalent to three entire buildings in Times Square.
Spectacolor has been livening up Times Square since the early 1970s. Forte, who joined the company in 1996, said it took years to get advertisers. "There were all those misconceptions about Times Square - the sex, sin and three card monte," he said.
Spectacolor also became the first to sell major national advertising in 2003 on the Las Vegas Strip, where it uses four giant LED screens with sound at the Fashion Show Mall.
In Atlantic City, The Walk, an eight-block retail-entertainment district, and the Quarter at Tropicana, which both opened last year, have helped to solidify the market as a retail and dining destination, and not just a gambling mecca.
"I think Atlantic City is under tremendous change," said Jackie Ershan, 68, who is from nearby Ventnor and walks the Boardwalk daily. "It's too fast for me, but I'm not the typical person that they're catering to."
Ershan, a retiree, said Atlantic City was catering to the young, affluent type. "They don't want people coming in on the buses," she said. "They had my generation when they had 'Buy One, Get One Free.' Now, it's time to move on."
Last week, construction crews were busy putting finishing touches on the new Pier. Only interior work remains.
"It's going to be beautiful," said Gary Dougherty, 60, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., who was strolling the Boardwalk with his father-in-law last week. Both stopped to gaze at the massive aqua-green-colored glass structure.
Customers at Caesars will not have to leave the casino to stroll over to the new Pier. Harrah's Entertainment is constructing a 60-foot enclosed bridge to connect the two.
The Pier will benefit from the marketing and advertising budget of its parent casino. The big push to sell ad space started this month, Forte said. He said he had plans to bus his entire sales team from New York to walk the Pier next month.
"Seeing it is believing it," he said.