Atlantic City 2015: It can only get better

NOW WE know what rock bottom looks like.

The year just passed saw Atlantic City suffer about the worst 12-month period any municipality has seen since the race-riot days of the 1960s.

The numbers are ugly: four casinos - Atlantic Club, Showboat, Trump Plaza and Revel - turned off the lights, erasing some 8,000 jobs. And although a fifth casino, Trump Taj Mahal, escaped a date with the executioner, its fate is hardly settled.

Harder to quantify, but no less devastating, was the negative public-relations tsunami that resulted from the casino-biz meltdown.

So, what about 2015? What's on the horizon for the town that's taken more hits than the audience at a Phish concert?

Well, we can't be certain. After all, it's possible that by the end of the year, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York and Delaware will have shut down their casino industries, thus returning to Atlantic City the mid-Atlantic monopoly it enjoyed for decades. Of course, if that were to happen, we here in Philly would be too absorbed in the Phillies' run to a 162-0 season to even notice.

But there is one bet that seems to be a lock: Absent an Ebola outbreak or equally calamitous occurrence, this year can't help but be better than 2014 for the beleaguered seaside resort. So, let's gaze into the crystal roulette ball and see some of what might be in the works for Atlantic City the next 12 months.

Assuming zillionaire Carl Icahn (who owns the Taj's debt) honors his pledge to fund the property through its imminent bankruptcy, the number of gambling dens should stabilize at eight. More importantly, those eight casinos should see decent numbers through the year, as they divvy up what had been split among a dozen gaming halls as recently as December 2013.

While most remaining casinos seem to have stanched the bleeding, the fates of Caesars and Bally's remain somewhat in doubt because of financial difficulties inundating their corporate parent, Caesars Entertainment of Las Vegas. And it's not out of the question that a new owner could reopen Revel with a casino.

The inventory could also grow with passage of the bill to allow "boutique" casinos with fewer than 500 hotel rooms and a relatively small number of tables and slot machines. The 330-room Chelsea Hotel is poised to add gambling as soon as lawmakers OK the plan.

It's here that AyCee's future hangs in the balance. A new group of outside investors has been arriving with plans for apartment houses, new businesses and other projects.

The most significant of these is Philly uber-developer Bart Blatstein, who now owns the chronically underperforming Pier Shops at Caesars mall. There's been lots of buzz about transforming Atlantic City into a kind of Fishtown-by-the-Sea, populated by millennials and hipsters of all ages. Considering Blatstein was the point guy on Fishtown's renaissance, this is a front to watch.

Dovetailing with that strategy is the planned conversion of the Showboat into a satellite campus of Richard Stockton State College. And it's long been rumored that the Atlantic Club may likewise be repurposed for educational use. Why not? College towns are among the most successful municipalities in the nation.

Last fall, the Atlantic City Alliance, the casino-funded marketing entity that hatched the "DO AC" campaign, was voted out of existence. A large chunk of its annual $30 million stipend is now earmarked for tax payments.

This doesn't mean the city will completely cease its efforts to lure visitors. Some money will likely go to a new, less-expensive agency that is expected to move away from the ACA's emphasis on advertising and public relations and focus more on staging mega-events like the free Blake Shelton and Lady Antebellum concerts on the beach this past summer.

The stars will have to align big-time, but it's not out of the question that Donald Trump could return.

The Donald, who moved AyCee into the modern casino era with the 1990 opening of the Taj Mahal (then the world's largest casino), has regularly hinted at such - as recently as this week in an NBC10 interview - pending certain, unnamed "conditions."

Trump's detractors may be legion, but there's no doubt his presence could be a shot in the arm.

Phone: 215-313-3134

On Twitter: @chuckdarrow

Blog: philly.com/Casinotes