YouTube is a treasure trove for various documentaries and other such information, including around gambling and hotspots like Vegas and Atlantic City, but every now and then, one will get posted that has some interesting new looks at various topics.
Jake of Bright Sun Films loves to dive deep into abandoned ideas and properties, and one such topic he tackled a few months ago is Revel Casino Resort, a from-the-ground-up build of a new resort property in Atlantic City which first opened its doors in 2012. It was the first ground-up build since Borgata in 2003, and still remains the most recent over a decade later.
For a variety of reasons, from timing to poor project management decisions, the project was marred by bad luck and closed relatively quickly after opening, at a time of decline in Atlantic City. It has since reopened as Ocean Casino Resort, and after some time to find their footing, Ocean is starting to get some momentum. When the casino reopened after the COVID shutdowns, it was one of the rare areas of growth.
But the documentary shows just how challenging the original Revel buildout was, and how incomplete the property remains, even to this day. Whole floors of the hotel tower have yet to be built out into rooms, for instance, and a second hotel tower never got constructed.
Some of these facts have been familiar to people before, but when you get to the part where you can actually see the unfinished floors through the light shining through the building… it’s pretty amazing. This is one of those documentaries which pairs the details with some really interesting visuals.
For those who love tales of Atlantic City, or about Revel/Ocean in particular, it pulls together some really interesting footage and facts about how things progressed.
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