History
In 1978, Ramada purchased the former Ambassador Hotel building for $20 million, planning to renovate the property and convert it into a 546-room hotel and 60,000-square-foot (5,600 m2) casino with amenities including a 1,200 seat theater and a 1,000 seat ballroom.
Executives at Ramada were forced to alter their plans when their design was denied by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission and Governor Brendan Byrne, as both did not want casino operators doing "patch and paint" jobs, instead they preferred the companies building new properties from the ground up. Ramada was ordered to demolish the former hotel and start from the ground up, but the company threatened to appeal the decision in court and an agreement to only use the steel framework of the Ambassador was reached.
In order to take advantage of Ramada's recent purchase of the original Tropicana Resort & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip, company officials decided to call their new property the "Tropicana Atlantic City", due to the Tropicana name already being a well-known name in the casino industry. Tropicana Atlantic City officially opened on November 23, 1981 with 521 guest rooms and a large casino. Shortly after opening an indoor amusement area called Tivoli Pier was built and within a year the name of the resort was changed to "TropWorld Casino and Entertainment Resort".
In 1989, Ramada hotels split their gaming properties into the Aztar Corporation, and the new division focused much of its projects on the Atlantic City property, which lead to the eventual sale of the Las Vegas Tropicana. Aztar constructed a new 604-room hotel tower as well as renovations to the existing rooms and casino space in 1995 and 1996. Tivoli Pier was closed during the casino expansions to make way for a new poker, keno and horse racing simulcast area. With the closing of the amusement area, the resort was renamed back to "Tropicana Casino & Resort Atlantic City".
Aztar then followed this expansion with another one in 2003 and 2004 that added a 502-room tower, a 2,400 space parking garage, 22,000 square feet (2,000 m2) of meeting and convention space, and The Quarter at Tropicana, a shopping mall designed in an old Havana theme. The goal of this project was to turn the Tropicana into an integrated casino resort reminiscent of the megaresorts built in Las Vegas during the 1990s, and also to compete with the Borgata, another Las Vegas megaresort-style casino opened in the city in 2003.
In May 2005 the Aztar Corporation was acquired by Columbia Sussex for $2.75 billion. The New Jersey Casino Control Commission granted Columbia Sussex an Interim Authorization to operate the resort on November 3, 2006. The acquisition concluded in January 2007 with the Aztar properties being merged into Columbia Sussex's gaming subsidiary, which was renamed Tropicana Entertainment LLC. In the first four months after the acquisition, Columbia Sussex reduced the number of employees at the Tropicana by 15 percent.
On November 20, 2007 the New Jersey Casino Control Commission initiated hearings for the renewal of the casino license of Tropicana and whether its parent companies, Adamar of New Jersey and Columbia Sussex, were suitable to hold a casino license. On December 12, 2007, the Casino Control Commission denied the application of renewal for Tropicana. The commission cited the management's "abysmal" regulatory compliance as well as a "lack of business ability... financial responsibility... and a lack of good character, honesty, and integrity." The property was immediately placed under the control of a trustee, former New Jersey State Supreme Court Justice Gary Stein, until it could be sold. This was only the second time in twenty-nine years that the commission denied a license renewal. Lawyers were expected to appeal.
The bankruptcy sale of the Tropicana Casino and Resort to a group of creditors led by Carl Icahn was approved by a bankruptcy court on June 12, 2009. The acquisition exchanged $200 million of the property's mortgage for equity. On August 26, 2009, the New Jersey Casino Control Commission approved Tropicana Entertainment as the property's new owner. The Commission stressed that the new owner is not the same company as the former owner, Tropicana Entertainment LLC. The decision enabled the property to operate under the same corporate umbrella as other Tropicana properties in Nevada, Mississippi, Louisiana and Indiana. Tropicana Entertainment Inc. was granted a temporary casino license by the Commission on March 3, 2010. The sale closed on March 8, 2010.
Read more about this topic: Tropicana Casino & Resort Atlantic City
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