The Mayor's Strategic Planning Committee issued a progress report Friday on efforts to improve Atlantic City as a destination resort
Mayor Lorenzo Langford (2nd from left) and members of the A.C. Strategic Planning Committee.
Anyone looking for concrete results from Atlantic City Mayor Lorenzo Langford’s A.C. Strategic Planning Committee will just have to take a gander at the sky over the city Boardwalk this July 4 weekend.
For the first time in several years, there will be a fireworks display over the Boardwalk on Friday, July 2, to complement fireworks on the fourth in the city’s Marina district.
The Boardwalk fireworks display came about quickly and was a direct result of the spirit of cooperation the mayor’s committee has forged, says Don Marrandino, president of the eastern division of Harrah’s Entertainment, at a special meeting to report on the committee’s actions, held Friday morning, June 4, at the Atlantic City Convention Center.
“I’m still kind of new here and I said to someone in the office, ‘What do we usually do for the fourth of July around here?' said Marrandino. “I was told that we have fireworks in the Marina. I said, ‘What about the Boardwalk?' They told me there hadn’t been anything in a few years.
“So I just went back to my office and started making some calls to the other Boardwalk properties,” he said. “And from about 9:30 to 11:30am we had managed to raise about $85,000 for fireworks. All the Boardwalk properties stepped up. That’s what these meetings and discussions have done. That’s the spirit of cooperation the city is seeing.”
The display isn’t just being sponsored by Boardwalk casinos, but also by Boardwalk properties such as the Steel Pier and private businesses such as the Schiff Bros. and SOSH Architects.
In November, Langford brought together executives and representatives from the casino and other city industries, civic groups, government agencies and the community to try and chart a new course for the city. Friday, the committee held a public forum to discuss what initiatives it had been working towards and its progress.
“Right now we are in the middle of a very tough period,” Langford said. “But there’s an old saying that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. So I put out the clarion call for the city to come together and challenged people to roll up their sleeves and work to make Atlantic City great. As you can see, the response has been overwhelming.”
The committee is actually split into three subcommittees focusing on regulatory issues, promotions and events, and clean-up and safety of the city. The various committees reported a number of early successes for the effort including:
• A successful Atlantic City job fair held in May designed to help city residents get jobs in the casino industry. More than 800 applications were taken with 517 people getting part-time, full-time or seasonal jobs.
• A citywide clean-up effort also last month that attracted 2,100 volunteers and removed nearly 8,000 pounds of garbage from city streets. Langford said he hopes to make the clean-up a semi-annual event.
• The continued success of special events at Boardwalk Hall including the recent Caesars Tennis Classic, major boxing bouts and large concerts by current acts such as Nickelback. Marrandino said that the city is close to a deal with the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority to provide funding (about $350,000) that ensures that the primary sponsors of large events do not lose money.
“As great as these events are for the city as a whole,” Marrandino said. “We have lost money on them. This would provide a safety net.”
• Advancement of a plan to install new lighting on the Boardwalk, hopefully by the end of the year, and also to beautify empty lots along the Boardwalk, such as the vacant Pinnacle (former Sands) site, through the city Special Improvement District.
• The reconfiguring of traffic lanes on the 1900 block of Atlantic Avenue to ease traffic congestion near the city bus station.
The committee’s also reported a number of other initiatives designed to improve the look of the resort and the experience of visiting the city. Still after the meeting was opened up to the public, it was clear that the city and the committee still have a lot of work ahead.
The city and Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Authority, for example, currently lacks the funding for a full-scale promotional advertising push to market the city as a singular destination.
Also, representatives of family-based attractions, such as the Steel Pier, worry that the city should be doing more to market to families.
Langford also pledged that the city would continue to use aggressive code enforcement to remove blight from the city and clean up the resort’s overly appearance.
The committee members also pledged to stage more informational meetings on their progress in the future.
Ever since he returned to his Atlantic City roots more than two years ago, Don Marrandino has been an outspoken critic of the costs of doing business at Boardwalk Hall.
"The change reflects our evolution as the industry's leading provider of branded casino entertainment."
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1. American Gaming Guru said... on Jun 7, 2010 at 01:19PM
“Lets keep the momentum going! There are an enormous amount of things to be done in this city. The cooperation shown by this group is a good start! BTW, the Schiff brothers are actually giving something back to this city??? Bravo.”