Revel Owner Suggests He Can Help Ease Syrian Refugee Crisis

By David Madden

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J., (CBS) -- Florida developer Glenn Straub has a new idea for using the shuttered Revel Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, at least while the facility's long term future is hammered out in the courts.

He's offering to shelter refugees from the civil war in Syria.

Mind you, Straub has offered up everything from a "genius university" to an indoor/outdoor water park in what's legally known as Polo North. Now he figures he can provide shelter for up to 3,000 Syrian refugees inside the hotel's open areas while construction work takes place.

Straub told KYW Newsradio, "They really just need someplace to put security, which we have I don't know how many thousands of cameras and security locations, magnetic locks and everything that a casino has that we can keep people that we wouldn't want to have wandering around in the neighborhoods."

Charities or the government would have to step up with food, health care and the like.

Straub says he's made the offer to Presidential candidates, and contends some have gotten back to him. He declined to identify any of them. But he doesn't expect the offer to be seriously considered until candidates emerge from the primaries.