Day And Nightlife For Atlantic City
The Pier at Caesars offers a new tourist destination for Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Dan Marcec

Inside The Pier at Caesars, Atlantic City, New Jersey.

“The whole Atlantic City market seems to be changing by the month,” says Scott Gordon, president of Greenwich, Connecticut-based Gordon Group Holdings. “The traditional customer coming here was a little bit older, but the average age of the tourist is going down, and Atlantic City really is exploding with redevelopment akin to Las Vegas in the early 1990s. We see a very bright future here, and we want to be a part of fostering that growth.”

The Pier at Caesars breaks down into more than 100,000 square feet of food, beverage and entertainment offerings, including Rum Jungle, the development’s largest entertainment tenant. Rum Jungle encompasses 16,000 square feet including an outdoor deck overlooking the ocean. In addition, the project features Buddakan and The Continental, two restaurants from Philadelphia restaurateur Steven Starr; Game On!, a high-end sports bar originally in Boston; Phillips, a Baltimore seafood restaurant that includes a sushi bar; and The Dubliner, an Irish pub.

With exterior signage that creates energy, and restaurants and retailers that deliver it, Gordon Group Holdings plan for The Pier at Caesars to be the place in Atlantic City — day or night.

The remaining 200,000 square feet of the project is composed of retail tenants, and 60,000 square feet of that is made up of tenants that offer what are considered luxury products. Luxury tenants include Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Burberry, while more traditional mall tenants occupying space at The Pier at Caesars are Armani Exchange, Steve Madden, Brookstone, Quiksilver and Tommy Bahama. With space still available, Gordon Group — which is handling leasing for the project in addition to being its developer — is seeking tenants that don’t locate in the everyday mall. With all but one of the restaurant spaces filled, approximately 90 percent of the project is leased. Only six or seven retail spaces are still available.

Another interesting feature located within the development is “The Show.” In conjunction with Los Angeles-based ThinkWell Productions, traditionally a theme park-type producer that undertakes large-scale entertainment projects, Gordon Group is constructing a $6.5 million water, sound and light spectacular show situated at the end of the pier. Underneath a three-level atrium, the water both falls down from the ceiling and shoots up from the floor, synchronized to the light and sound. “The Show” runs approximately once an hour, and with a flexible theme that is not story-based, but more of an attraction to the senses, it can be modified for various events.

“The influence of The Pier at Caesars’ design really is quite simple,” says Gordon. “The architecture is contemporary, but it really borrows from the boardwalk, which runs 3 miles down the beach. Since the boardwalk is the most famous icon in the city, we used a lot of its elements in the design, such as the sea grass and the sand dunes; we even used the actual boardwalk wood that runs outside on the entirety of two levels. You really get the feeling that you’re at the beach 12 months a year, which is the effect we sought.”

View from the ocean of The Pier at Caesars.

Gordon Group discovered the location in the mid-1990s, due to a longstanding relationship with Caesars, yet the company did not go forward with the project because the market wasn’t ready to support a retail/entertainment project of this magnitude. It ended up managing the existing development, Ocean One Mall, and now that the market is right for this type of project, Gordon Group tore down the existing property and began construction on what will soon be The Pier at Caesars.

“One of the most unique aspects of this project is that it really will be the only high-end shopping complex in the world that is situated over an ocean,” explains Gordon. “Thirty-six million tourists come to Atlantic City annually, and now they have a destination that provides something for everyone, from retail to restaurants to entertainment.”

The impact on the Atlantic City market is perhaps the most intriguing aspect of The Pier at Caesars. Gordon Group is pursuing construction of an aerial tramway that connects the end of the pier to the convention center, supporting a link between the convention business, the train station, the casino hotels and the restaurant entertainment all together. The tramway project is moving along with support from the state of New Jersey, and it should be complete in 2008.

“Similar to when we built the Forum in Las Vegas, this project will help turn a one-dimensional town into something greater,” Gordon says. “Bringing in retail and restaurants brings a new type of customer, couples and families start coming together, conventions start to pursue the market, and we really think it’s going to launch Atlantic City into another dimension.”

Gordon Group And Rubin Stahl Develop Lac-Mirabel Near Montreal Gordon Group Holdings and Rubin Stahl are developing Lac-Mirabel north of Montreal. Just north of Montreal in the Lower Laurentian mountains of Quebec, Canada, Gordon Group Holdings has partnered with Rubin Stahl to develop Lac-Mirabel, a mixed-use development featuring an expansive retail and entertainment complex. The project, which is currently in design and is scheduled to open in 2007, will feature a 1.5 million-square-foot commercial mall, hotel and residential components, and a 500,000-square-foot sporting complex with a 6,000-seat arena for minor league hockey, an Olympic size swimming pool, a full-size soccer field and state-of-the-art gymnasium. Twelve restaurants will surround the main lakes on the property. Furthermore, Lac-Mirabel features an educative entertainment facility called Kidtropolis, which is a very unique concept that functions as a miniature town. Children pay to enter, and once inside, they take on various jobs to operate a fabricated city. The total investment on the project is $425 million. Lac-Mirabel plans to be the first “green” mall in North America. The developers are focused on the environment in terms of energy usage and saving trees on the property. “The most unique concept of Lac-Mirabel is that it will be the first green mall in all of North America,” says Sheldon Gordon, chairman of Gordon Group Holdings. “We’re very focused on the environment in terms of energy, in terms of materials we use, in saving trees on the property and using water supplies wisely.” Even though the project is still in its early stages, more than 60 percent of retail spaces already have been reserved by tenants. Lac-Mirabel has landed its main anchor, Cabela’s, which is occupying a 170,000-square-foot sporting goods store in the development. Other components include a 100,000-square-foot Caldea Therapeutic Spa from Andorra in Europe; a 50,000-square-foot Formula One race track with the first electric battery powered cars; and a 3,000-seat amphitheater for live concerts and performing arts. The design of the project retains an outdoor feel — to go along with its green attributes — with 15 acres of lakes for summer and winter activities such as boating, ice skating and cross country skiing, and 25 acres of entertainment components currently are being negotiated. In addition, Lac-Mirabel includes 2,000 underground parking spaces. “We’re planting grass on the roof of most of the building with opening skylights as well, so that the mall will not have to be cooled in the summertime, as the weather in this region is conducive to enabling that,” notes Gordon. “In addition, our goal with the design has been to make this project very user-friendly.” — Dan Marcec