Blatstein Buys The Showboat
By David Madden
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The shuttered Showboat Hotel Casino in Atlantic City has been sold for the second time in less than a year. A Philadelphia developer will take over the place once the sale closes before the end of 2015.
Bart Blatstein, CEO of Tower Investments, will pay 22 million dollars to Stockton University to take the place off their hands. Given he's already turning a former upscale mall across from Caesar's into an entertainment center, he's got an interest in Atlantic City.
He sees a lot of potential in the Showboat.
"It's a great opportunity," Blatstein told KYW Newsradio. "The property spans for four city blocks. It's 1,300 hotel rooms. 4,000 parking spaces. The immensity of it is mind boggling."
Stockton bought the Showboat last November in hopes of turning it into a hotel and college campus, only to be blocked by threatened litigation over whether it could be used as anything other than a casino. Blatstein tried and failed to open a casino in Philadelphia, but insists it would be a mistake to assume he now wants to open up one down the shore.
"I have no interest in doing in Atlantic City what I was doing in Philadelphia," he said. "It's a completely different project at a completely different time.
As for the legal covenants that will soon become Blatstein's problem, he won't discuss them save to say he hopes to work out an amicable solution.
The school is just glad to put the events of the last year in the rear view mirror. " We're not in the real estate business. We're in the business of education, said Stockton interim President Harvey Kesselman. "Once we realized that this would not work as originally envisioned, then we had to pursue this in a very different manner."
Kesselman says the school will continue to look for a site for an Atlantic City campus.
