ATLANTIC CITY—The historic Steel Pier at Trump Taj Mahal will be brought to auction on Thursday, August 25, says CB Richard Ellis' Auction Services, which is supervising the event for owner Trump Entertainment Resorts. The open-cry auction will be held at 12 noon at the Trump Taj Mahal here.
The minimum bid for the 3.4-acre property is $2.5 million. The site currently is home to an amusement park featuring 24 rides, games, prize wheels and a food court, on a lease extending through 2016. The property then can be redeveloped into hotel, residential, retail or mixed-use.
“This offering is a truly rare opportunity to acquire a one-of-a-kind national showplace,” said Douglas Johnson, managing director, CBRE Auction Services, in the announcement. “As New Jersey’s counterpart to New York’s Coney Island and Chicago’s Navy Pier, the Steel Pier at Trump Taj Mahal is most certainly the centerpiece of Atlantic City’s celebrated boardwalk. With permits in place for the Pier to accommodate a wide diversity of new development uses, possible projects could include a 228-room hotel, a 33,672-square-foot casino and bar with restaurant and spa areas, or luxury condominiums.”
The auction is the latest chapter in a long history for the Jersey Shore landmark, opened in 1898. In its heyday, the Pier was known for its famous Diving Horse, a high-wire motorcycle act and four theatres that could accommodate 12,000 patrons at a time. The Miss America Pageant was originally held on the Pier in the early 1920’s. Performers as diverse as W.C. Fields, Mae West, Charlie Chaplin, The Three Stooges, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman, Jimmy Dorsey, the Human Cannonball and Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly, who set the world’s record (seven weeks) for pole sitting, made the pier an entertainment core during the first half of the 20th century.
However, the overall decline of Atlantic City after World War II led to the pier being neglected, and then devastated in a 1982 fire. The Trump Taj Mahal rebuilt the pier in 1993. In 2008, Trump Entertainment Resorts announced plans to redevelop the pier into luxury condominiums. However, the plans never came to fruition, and the space remained an amusement park. In February, Trump Entertainment Resorts sold the Trump Marina nearby to Landry’s, operator of the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas for $38 million.
“A venerable piece of Americana directly across the boardwalk from the Trump Taj Mahal, Atlantic City’s preeminent casino, acquiring the Steel Pier at Trump Taj Mahal represents an opportunity for an investor to own a piece of real estate history, collect income immediately, and transform this amazing engineering feat extending 965 feet into the Atlantic Ocean into a profitable concept befitting of the 21st century,” added Paul Galanis, managing director of CBRE Auction Services.
Bidder’s Seminars with detailed information about the pier will be held at the Taj Mahal on July 21st and August 15th at 10:00 am. Auction representatives will be available to answer questions about the auction and the property. Registration for the auction begins at 11:00am. A $150,000 certified or cashier’s check is required in order to participate.
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