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ATLANTIC CITY - City Council has scheduled a special meeting next week in an effort to hurry through an application from Revel Entertainment Group that could net $150 million in infrastructure improvements around the company's megaresort site.

Council members will meet at 4 p.m. Dec. 2 and are expected to vote on an ordinance that would approve Revel's application to a grant program created by the state through its economic stimulus bill, which was signed by outgoing Gov. Jon S. Corzine in July.

If passed, the application would go before the state's Local Finance Board and could make Revel eligible for a state-issued bond to fund the $150 million in improvements. That bond would be financed through hefty portions of Revel's annual property taxes to the city and county.

The money could lead to various improvements in the city's blighted Inlet section, including its Boardwalk, Garden Pier, and Arctic and Baltic avenues. The administration originally crafted the ordinance to be presented at City Council's Nov. 10 meeting, but it was never placed on council's agenda.

Although council members said they would simply discuss the application, Revel attorney Lloyd D. Levenson said the ordinance must pass before the Local Finance Board meets Dec. 9 to qualify.

"That's the reason for the special meeting," he said. "The (originally) scheduled council meeting would have been on the same day as" the Local Finance Board's meeting.

City Council also approved an ordinance on second-reading Tuesday to create a local version of the state program, a technical step required to advance the bond plan.

Contact Michael Clark:

609-272-7204

Michael.Clark@pressofac.com

3 comments:

• Madison (74) posts 9:21 am

  This bond proposal, as originally drawn up, will do what thirty years of governmental ineptitude and corruption, as well as a misguided CRDA program, have failed to do; clean up and revitalize this city. The beauty of it is that politicians won't be able get their hands on the money. This bond proposal should become the new model for encouraging development projects in the city, casino and non casino alike.

• Wizenheimer (68) posts 8:11 am

  Maybe they could use some of the money to bulldoze Hudson's Bar on South New York Avenue.

• executioner1 (307) posts 8:08 am

  If you do grant them the tax approval hols them financially accountable to be in operation by a drop dead date. We have been through these promises before like Steve Wynn and the tunnel and the Pinnacle empty lot. We are still waiting for the Circus Circus and other promised casinos that were given all types of approvals but never finished construction.

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