Atlantic City Retreating From Casino Mentality

One has a salt-water spa, two celebrity chef restaurants, twice daily maid visits, 330 rooms and zero slot machines.

Another has an $18,000-a-week floral budget, five swimming pools and 800 rooms but no roulette wheels, craps pits or blackjack tables.

Two of Atlantic City's newest hotels are wagering customers will flock to this seaside resort with gambling all around them and stay for something other than the tumbling dice.

This resort town is making a multi-billion-dollar bet that it can attract more affluent, Las Vegas-style customers who care more about fine dining, top-name entertainment, spa treatments and general pampering than about whether the little white ball will land on a red or a black number.

The 330-room Chelsea, a $110 million makeover of two old motels into a retro-chic hotel with a '50s and '60s theme, opened Friday. It followed by a few weeks the opening of The Water Club, the $400 million, 800-room hotel built by the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa but marketed aggressively as a standalone oasis of luxury - parts of which are off-limits even to Borgata casino guests.

At least one more such project is on the drawing board.

First And Foremost, A Resort Town

With 11 casino-hotels operating here and hotel towers rising everywhere you look, why build a non-gambling hotel in Atlantic City?

"Atlantic City was a resort for 100 years before it was a gambling destination," said Curtis Bashaw, one of two developers of the Chelsea. "We're firm believers in returning to those roots and providing a really fun hotel in the center of America's playground."

Bashaw operates successful luxury hotels in Cape May, N.J., is opening others in New York and once led the agency that reinvests money that Atlantic City casinos are obligated to contribute to development projects here and across the state.

"There's not a lot of hotel product in Atlantic City for someone that doesn't want to sleep next to a wall of slot machines or who wants a luxurious haven without the cacophony of a gambling floor," Bashaw said.

Las Vegas also has some non-gambling hotels on or near The Strip, although the majority of hotels there offer some sort of gambling. But the 1,282-room Trump International Hotel and Tower, which opened there in April, doesn't offer gambling.

'It Could Be A Recipe For Success'

Joel Simkins, senior vice president of Macquarie Securities, said it remains to be seen whether non-gambling hotels will succeed here. But he said it's "an interesting concept that I think Atlantic City can embrace."

"Atlantic City needs more high-quality hotel rooms," he said. "If you can deliver that with a high level of service, it could be a recipe for success."

It's not like these hotels are being plunked down in the middle of nowhere; guests who do want to gamble can find tables and slots close by. The Water Club is about 50 yards from the entrance to the Borgata.

"This market has some of the best, cleanest beaches anywhere, and the climate is pretty reasonable most of the year," Mullin said. "You add golf, fine dining and retail options - things people like to do on vacation - and people looking for a nice place to stay start looking at Atlantic City in a whole new way."