1. Knights of Columbus Hotel
1408 Pacific Ave.
Assessed: $900,000
Built: 1927
Owner: NEJ NJ LLC
Principal: Nedjatollah J. Sakhai, Old Westbury, N.Y.
Status: Renovations at 50,000 square-foot building started in April 2011.
What’s next: Sakhai says a few groups have approached him with proposals: two for hotels, one for a museum and another for an outpatient cancer care center. Until he brokers a deal with the proper investor, renovations will not progress because the work completed during the past year addressed deficiencies city officials identified as making the property unsafe, he said.
‘I’ve done my share in the city — my property is safe,’ said Sakhai, who also built 16 single-family homes between Baltic, North Carolina and South Carolina avenues. So far, six of the 1,650-square-feet houses have sold for about $200,000 each.
2. Flanders Hotel
127 St. James Place
Assessed: $840,000
Built: 1952
Owner: Claremont Hotel
Principal: Perry Chopra, New York
Status: Renovations ongoing since spring 2011.
What’s next: Expected to reopen as a hotel by October.
3. Garden Pier
New Jersey Avenue and the Boardwalk
Assessed: $9.2 million (includes entire pier, base, public restrooms and building housing the Atlantic City Art Center and Historical Museum)
Built: 1913
Owner: City of Atlantic City
Status: In 1944, ‘the Great Atlantic Hurricane’ washed away the ballroom that once overlooked the ocean from the tip of the 1,500-foot pier, which was named for the gardens once there. Interior renovations and demolition of ocean end of pier began in May 2011.
What’s next: Work expected to be completed by the end of July, re-opening date to be announced.
4. Boardwalk Pavilion
Maine and Atlantic avenues
Assessed: $946,400
Built: 1930s
Owner: City of Atlantic City
Status: Closed
Pavilion is part of the broken-down Boardwalk along Absecon Inlet. City raised more than $11 million throughout the years for repairs, but diverted that money to pay for other things, such as beach replenishment.
What’s next: Awaiting reconstruction design approval by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection for the pavilion and surrounding Boardwalk.
5. Boardwalk Pavilion
Roosevelt Place and Boardwalk
Assessed: $868,000
Owner: City of Atlantic City
Status: City tore down pavilion and established seating area in June.
6. Pinnacle Entertainment site
20-acre Boardwalk site bounded by Pacific, Kentucky and Indiana avenues
Assessed: $65 million
Cleared: Sands Casino Hotel demolished in 2007
Owner: Pinnacle Entertainment Inc.
Principal: Anthony Michael Sanfilippo, Las Vegas
Status: Atlantic City Alliance and New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Development Authority officials say they are negotiating a lease to establish large-scale interactive art installations there and on the Gurwicz site about a quarter mile south on the Boardwalk. Pinnacle representatives did not return calls seeking comment.
7. Former Playboy Hotel and Casino site
2.3-acre Boardwalk parcel bordered by Florida, Bellevue and Pacific avenues
Assessed: $24.3 million
Cleared: 1999, when Trump’s World’s Fair Casino closed. The 22-story building was home to four casinos during an 18-year span. The first was Playboy Enterprises Inc., which operated for a year with a temporary casino license but failed in 1982 to secure a permanent one because the Casino Control Commission suspected company representatives lied during related hearings.
Owner: Boardwalk Florida Enterprises
Principal: Michael Markman, of BET Investments, Horsham, Pa.
Status: The website for BET Investments, a firm whose members include Toll Brothers co-founder Bruce E. Toll, reflects plans to open a dual-tower, 431-unit condo high-rise there — three summers ago. The Atlantic City Tourism District Master Plan calls for sculpture installations while the site awaits development.
What’s next: Markman did not return calls seeking comment.
8. Abandoned buildings at Lincoln Place
Brick buildings totaling 61,060 square feet on beach block between Lincoln and Roosevelt places
Assessed: $7.9 million combined
Built: 1930
Owner: Wextrust/HPC Mort. Fund, Boca Raton, Fla.
Status: Wextrust agreed to demolish former apartment buildings, waiting on decision on federal grant to help pay for asbestos removal.
9. St. James Place and the Boardwalk
Assessed: $7.9 million
Built: Central Pier built in 1884
Owner: Schiff Enterprises
Principals: Robert and Abraham Schiff, Atlantic City
Used as: amusement pier and Boardwalk shops.
Status: Pier operable and now clear of smells and charring caused by December 2009 fire.
10. Former Abbott’s Dairy site
1200 Absecon Blvd. Sits at Route 30, Kentucky Avenue and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard
Assessed: $1.5 million
Cleared: last spring, more than four decades after Abbott’s Dairy stopped using the site as a distribution center
Owner: Absecon Boulevard Investments Inc.
Principal: William Thayer, Bordentown, Burlington County
Status: Thayer says he has a few ideas, including one for a convenience plaza focused on providing casino and nightlife industry workers with 24-hour dry-cleaning, grocery, pharmacy and other services. Plans for the Oasis are sketched out at oasisatlanticcity.com. Although his property sits outside the Tourism District, Thayer said he intends to contact the CRDA within the next few weeks to talk about development opportunities.
Sources: City of Atlantic City, Atlantic County property records, New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Development Authority
