Abandoned - Revel Casino Resort

[Music] what's up guys my name is jake and welcome to abandoned episode 55. back in the summer of 2019 we went on a road trip through the northeastern united states it was the same road trip where we filmed the astonishing neverly hotel and for some reason we were approaching atlantic city for the ending of our journey but we weren't going there to enjoy the beaches or try our luck in the casinos for a while now i've known about a troubled hotel development on the new jersey coast a massive modern glass tower that looks like a shining star and an otherwise somewhat dated skyline of aging casino hotels one that at one point was abandoned so me being me of course i wanted to check it out for myself and while it was a pleasant stay it got me thinking on how this architectural marvel failed so spectacularly so since my last episode in the abandoned series was on an insane project that burned through millions of dollars i figured this particular property had its own insane story to tell one concluding with the resort that still isn't finished today so let's take a deeper dive into the ocean casino resort in atlantic city or formerly known as the revel casino hotel this episode has been made possible by my patreon supporters if you want to help support the channel and get a bunch of great perks in return go to patreon.com brightsunfilms or click the link in the description below it all started in 2006 when the investment bank morgan stanley purchased a 20 acre parcel of land adjacent to the showboat hotel and casino they spent around 70 million dollars on it with the hope to build a massive and world-renowned casino resort they placed an industry executive by the name of kevin desanctis in charge of developing this ambitious plan and by mid-2007 morgan stanley announced their official plans for what they intended to do at the site this included two massive 700 foot hotel towers which were comprised of over 4 000 rooms this sat above a huge casino with parking space for around 7 000 cars this was obviously ambitious especially for the time as these towers would have been the tallest in all of new jersey so eventually later that year the project was scaled back to just one hotel tower for now with an opening date of 2010. it was called the revel casino hotel construction broke ground in late 2007 and went vertical by early 2008 however those dates are probably sounding a little tedious to all of you 2008 wasn't exactly the best year to be building a luxury massive casino as the united states was facing a detrimental recession atlantic city was instantly put in a dreadful situation as consumers weren't spending as much excess income there and by early 2009 funding for construction was quickly running out which led to thousands of workers being laid off progress then slowed just as the tower was topping out suddenly the revel appeared to be not such a great idea as the shining tower rose above a now depressed area by april of 2010 in a shocking move morgan stanley decided to pull out of the project after investing over 1.2 billion dollars they decided to take a 900 million dollar loss rather than spend the additional 1 billion dollars it would take to finish the project because of this revel was put in a precarious situation as the half-finished casino was left in limbo this prompted the remaining developers to scramble trying to find the necessary funding to keep the construction going but in a move which for those of you who watched my american dream mall video may find um similar let's say new jersey's then governor chris christie had stepped in and announced his state government would be providing 260 million dollars in financing so now with the state backing this resort revel had refined their project now canceling the planned second tower and scaling back their hotel rooms to just one thousand actually that second tower was already being built when the developers had cancelled it in early construction photos you can actually see vertical construction on it alongside tower one however once it was abandoned the already built structure was just topped off just a few floors high and the planned rooms just became other spaces so now as you look at the building from certain angles it clearly shows that a second tower was already somewhat built before it was abruptly cancelled morgan stanley eventually sold their stake for just 30 million dollars on march 2nd 2011 and a day later construction had finally resumed the dormant site once again sprung to life and now with consistent progress an opening date was announced for april 2nd 2012. finally after six years of development the revel casino hotel atlantic city officially opened to the public the resort had so far cost 2.4 billion dollars to get the doors open however that's not to say what they finished wasn't good quality the resort itself was modern and aesthetically pleasing with wide open concourses great views from the many hotel rooms and lots of amenities however on the casino side of things it ranked almost at the bottom of atlantic city's 12 major casinos in terms of winnings rival had a pretty lackluster grand opening yet officials and politicians celebrated the 10 000 new jobs the resort created governor christie said in the official press release for the opening quote the completion of revel and its opening is a turning point for atlantic city and a clear sign that people once again have faith in the city's ability to come back and be successful revel was often thought to be the saving grace for the city a luxury resort to start a new chapter for the area however in reality revel's financial situation told an entirely different story by the second quarter of 2012 the resort lost more than 35 million dollars which was preceded by an even worse third quarter loss of 37 million dollars by november casino officials were throwing up the red flags of a potential bankruptcy just as atlantic city claimed revel failed to pay 12 million dollars in property taxes they also still owed over 50 million dollars to independent contractors despite securing over a hundred million dollars in long-term loans the resorts still couldn't keep up with the massive amounts of money they were losing by february of 2013 just 10 months after opening revel had filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection they were over 1.5 billion dollars in debt in the filing revel had declared that the resort's value had dropped from almost two and a half billion dollars to now just 450 million dollars they also revealed that their current trajectory they wouldn't be profitable until 2017 the resort had ultimately not found any way out of their dire situation and after a second bankruptcy petition in august of 2014 revel announced that no buyers were found to bail the hotel out of its debt and unbelievably they added that the revel hotel and casino would close on september 2nd 2014 just two and a half years after opening so in early september the rebel closed alongside three other major casinos in atlantic city now the biggest question was what was going to happen to the almost brand new mega hotel glenn straub a developer decided to bid on the project and eventually won taking control under his golf course company so in early 2015 he purchased revel for just 82 million dollars that's just 3.4 percent of what it costs to build strab renamed the complex to polo north and claimed the hotel and casino would be open for business by the summer during this time the city had actually cut power and water to the building for around 20 days as the energy companies were engaged in a fee dispute all while the mega hotel and casino sat empty and now abandoned through the rest of 2015 the property was only allowed cold running water and was eventually threatened by the local sewage company to withhold their dumping privileges glenn however had high hopes for his hotel stating in early 2016 that the resort would be reformatted into a family entertainment destination which would also now feature a water park he also put a new opening date on the table for june of that year for being abandoned going on almost two years at this point the building itself was apparently in pretty good condition this was likely because critical engineering staff was kept running the building keeping it up so major damage wouldn't be inflicted but all of that came at a cost they were supposedly spending around 1 million dollars every month just on maintenance strab had apparently ensured everything was ready to go but as summer 2016 came and went polo north never opened later that year glenn revised his intended opening date for now early 2017 and announced a new name for the resort 10 atlantic city however as you probably guessed it never opened after empty promises and little hope from the public the resort was sinking further and further back into debt rumors then began circulating that 10 was seeking a buyer and that its current owners didn't even have the means to open it finally on january 8 2018 those rumors had actually turned out to be true when it was announced that a company called ac oceanwalk would acquire the resort for around 200 million dollars and now finally someone was serious about opening this property back up ac announced that their company would invest another 175 million dollars to bring the abandoned and slowly decaying structure back up to a presentable state for opening finally the hotel was renamed for the last time to the ocean resort casino and after almost four years of sitting empty and effectively abandoned the not so new resort reopened on june 27 2018. the hotel opened with over 100 000 square feet of gaming 19 restaurants 6 bars and a full spa the property also boasts an expansive set of common areas lobbies and conference rooms most of the original decor however is unchanged from the original revel hotel most notably in the guest rooms as they're pretty much the exact same as they were in the original overall the entire structure is around 6.3 million square feet which is almost the same size as the pentagon so it's pretty large when i visited i actually didn't know what to expect and when i first entered i was taken back by how actually massive the facility is i did enjoy the architecture and i thoroughly enjoyed our room the views were especially nice i think the best part about it though was the price king rooms can be as cheap as 49 a night which is astonishingly good we've spent more on another dirty room and haven't exactly gotten these types of accommodations however with that being said the resort is a bit of a maze which tends to happen when a building this large is designed for another client there's also the fact that the resort still isn't really finished there are several large rooms and even floors in the main tower that are completely unfinished there are actually 12 entire empty floors where around 600 extra rooms were framed yet never built what's even more strange is that these unfinished rooms are in between active finished rooms so guests are actually staying above and below a section of the hotel that is just unfinished i suppose it's one of the last remnants of the tumultuous past for this property so what's happening now well when the resort first opened they were still not profitable and even sparked rumors of another bankruptcy the new company which owned it was led by a man named bruce diafik however just six months into operating the struggling resort he was abruptly killed in a single car crash the result of his death behind the wheel was from an apparent medical event so one of his primary lenders assumed control of the resort in early 2019 and after another 70 million dollars was pumped into the hotel the results are finally positive according to them ocean for the first time ever was self-sufficient in 2020 prior to the global pandemic however of course due to the events of kovid it forced the hotel to temporarily close i am almost positive that the property will not make any money through 2020 for many reasons mostly because they had to shut down and they won't be able to fill the hotel to their desired capacity and that sets an unknown course into the future since who knows how long that will last and how big of a financial impact it'll have my feelings on this are a bit mixed on one side i enjoyed our room there waking up to the view was great and the restaurant we ate at was pretty good it was an interesting experience walking through something i knew had had such a rough history and even sat abandoned for a couple years but there was also a weird feeling i got there like everything wasn't exactly right and everything was hastily being held together for something that might just collapse but i guess i am a bit biased since i rather dislike casino hotels altogether i guess in the end the story of this building was the most interesting part about it the otherwise seemingly standard modern mega resort hides in plain sight unless you know the actual story unfortunately for them however most people in the area do to me the fact that it went through so many owners burned through literal billions of dollars then sold for a fraction of a fraction of that is unbelievable you would never think a building so modern and fancy would have gone through a nightmare it did but here we are it's been 14 years and the ocean resort is still not really finished and it really is hard to find anyone else but the developers to blame for wasting so much time and money so i guess in the end it was the revel who had the gambling problem i want to give a huge thanks to my wonderful and generous patreon supporters if you enjoy the content i do and appreciate the enormous amount of time it takes me to make these videos then patreon is the best way to show your support just added is a bunch of brand new merchandise like limited edition polaroids and now even t-shirts mugs and sweaters all made exclusively for patreon supporters and won't be sold anywhere else it's a fantastic new reward for showing your support among others like having your name at the end of this video and seeing my videos in some cases a week before the public does join my special patreon community today by going to patreon.com brightsunfilms or by clicking the link in the description below seriously thank you all to have been supporting me there and those of you who wish to in the future it really does help me a lot in making these videos anyway guys my name is jake and thank you very much for watching [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: Bright Sun Films

Views: 882,307

Rating: 4.9281197 out of 5

Keywords: ABANDONED 55, ABANDONED 54, Showboat Casino, abandoned hotel, resort, Atlantic City, creepy, vacant, brand new building, glass tower, never built, bright sun films, Jake williams, Revel Hotel and Casino, Ocean Resort, Ocean Casino Resort, TEN Atlantic City, Polo North, American Dream Mall, abandoned resort, beach, documentary, history, failure, billions, wasted money, cancelled, bankrupt, casinos, New Jersey, New York, Atlantic, family friendly, PG, clean, new, 2020, 2021, grand opening

Id: uu2QudztScc

Length: 16min 29sec (989 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 11 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/YEazyBrazy]

I miss Revel

[u/FrankGrimesApartment]

The guy is spot on when he says "something just feels off about the place when you are there". Nevertheless, the views are great and the outdoor deck spaces are pretty sweet. But that place is just cursed.

Even a bunch of the Revel's executives died in a plane crash in 2008 shopping for window glass for the casino in Minnesota.

[u/mdp300]

He had a good one about American Dream, too.