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One of Donald Trump’s old Atlantic City casinos will be blown up next month, and to get the right amount of money, you could be the one to press the button that lowers it.
The demolition of the former Trump Plaza casino will become a fundraiser for the benefit of the Atlantic City Boys & Girls Club, which the mayor hopes to raise more than a million dollars.
Opened in 1984, Trump’s former casino closed in 2014 and has fallen into a state of disrepair as demolition work began earlier this year. The rest of the structure will be blown up on January 29th.
“Some of Atlantic City’s iconic moments happened there, but when he left, Donald Trump openly mocked Atlantic City, saying he made a lot of money and then left,” Mayor Marty Small said. “I wanted to use the demolition of this place to raise money for charity.”
The Boys & Girls Club has hired a professional auction company to solicit bids from Thursday to January 19, when the main bids will be revealed and a live auction will determine the winner. The organization offers after-school and summer recreation, education and training programs for Atlantic City children and teens.
Trump, then a real estate developer, opened the casino in a prime location in the center of the Atlantic City Boardwalk, where the Atlantic City Freeway deposited vehicles entering the complex. It was the site of many high-profile boxing matches, which Trump would attend regularly.
It closed in 2014, one of four Atlantic City casinos that closed that year, followed by another former Trump casino, the Taj Mahal, in 2016. Since then, this property has reopened as a casino of Hard Rock.
The third casino Trump had here, Trump Marina, was sold to Texas billionaire Tilman Fertitta in 2011 and is now Golden Nugget.
Trump cut most ties with Atlantic City in 2009, aside from a 10% fee for using his name in what were then three city casinos. That stake was extinguished when billionaire Carl Icahn took ownership of the company out of bankruptcy court in February 2016.
Trump Plaza has been sitting empty for six years and has been deteriorating. Earlier this year, large chunks of the facade fell off one of the hotel towers and fell to the ground. In a storm, additional debris fell from the structure on the boardwalk.
Icahn owns the old Trump Plaza building and has accepted the demolition. Small said he wanted to discuss possible land uses with Icahn once the casino disappeared, including some sort of family attraction.
“It doesn’t often open up city land in front of the ocean,” the mayor said. “We have a chance to get it right.”
The last casino implosion in Atlantic City was in October 2007, when the old Sands casino was blown up to give way to a new casino-hotel project that was never built.