ATLANTIC CITY, NJ-Park Place Entertainment, owner of Caesar's Atlantic City and the Ocean One Mall, will shut down the half-million-sf shopping complex/pier for a year and a half to redevelop it into “something very dramatic” according to company officials. The price tag for the makeover has been put at $100 million.

Ocean One Mall sits directly across the famed boardwalk from Caesar's, extending some 900 feet into the Atlantic Ocean. In Atlantic City's heyday, it was known as the Million Dollar Pier, but was redeveloped as a mall, resembling an ocean liner, in the early 1980's. Several years ago, Caesar's proposed to redevelop it as a 250-room hotel complex, but the project was put on hold when Park Place Entertainment acquired Caesar's.

Under the new proposal, the complex will be shut beginning around the end of this year. Caesar's president Paul Henderson has sent a letter to the 100 or so retail tenants stating that “construction of our new project will begin immediately [after the closing], with a grand opening scheduled for the spring of 2004.”