Tropicana Casino and Resort Atlantic City

The Tropicana Casino and Resort Atlantic City is a casino and hotel located at Brighton Avenue and the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It was owned by Adamar of New Jersey a subsidiary of Columbia Sussex Corporation. On December 12, 2007, control of hotel and casino operations were handed over to a trustee after the Casino Control Commission denied the Tropicana’s gaming license renewal. The Tropicana is, in part, the largest hotel in New Jersey, featuring 2,125 rooms, and is in part a 148,000 ft² (14,000 m²) casino.

History

The Tropicana was the concept of the Ramada Inns Corporation in the 1980s. It was built on the former site of the Ambassador Hotel. After paying $20 million for the old Ambassador Hotel in Atlantic City, the company released plans to renovate the property and convert it into a 546 room hotel and 60,000 square foot casino with amenities including a 1,200 seat dinner theater, 1,000 seat ballroom and other public facilities.

Executives at Ramada were forced to alter their plans when their design was denied approval by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission and Governor Brendan Byrne, both of whom had become tired of casino operators doing “patch and paint” jobs instead of building totally new properties, a main reason for the legalization of casinos in Atlantic City. Ramada was ordered to demolish the old building and start from the ground up, and the company threatened to appeal the decision in court. An agreement was finally reached between Ramada and the New Jersey Casino Control Commission to only use the steel framework of the Ambassador while changing the exterior appearance of the hotel. The ultimate result of these design changes was a two-year delay in the resorts opening as well as millions of dollars in cost overruns that pushed the final price tag of the resort to almost $400 million.
In order to take advantage of its recent purchase of the original Tropicana Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Ramada officials decided to call their new property the Tropicana Atlantic City in order to capitalize on the recognizable name. The Tropicana Atlantic City officially opened on November 23, 1981 with 521 guest rooms and casino space. Shortly after opening a unique 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 spun off their gaming properties into the new Aztar Corporation.

Aztar has focused much of its capital investment projects on the Atlantic City Tropicana. In 1995 Aztar commenced construction of a new 604 room hotel tower as well as renovations to the existing rooms and casino space. Tivoli Pier was closed to make way for a new poker, keno and horse racing simulcast area, and the property reverted back to the old Tropicana name.

The company followed this expansion with another project completed in 2004 that added the 502 room Havana Tower, a new 2,400 space parking garage, 20,000 square feet of meeting and convention space and a new retail and restaurant venue. This project is called The Quarter at Tropicana and is designed in an old Havana theme meant to evoke images of that city. 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. Aztar also timed this expansion to take advantage of the new interest in the Atlantic City casino market caused by the opening of the Borgata Resort in 2003

In May of 2005 Aztar Corporation agreed to be acquired by the Columbia Sussex Corporation 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 Casinos & Resorts. In the first four months after the acquisition, Columbia Sussex reduced the number of employees at the Tropicana by 15 percent.