Hard Rock hits the big time

It’s early going yet but, by all indications, Hard Rock International has come up trumps in Atlantic City. That has a double meaning. Not only is Hard Rock Atlantic City playing a winning hand in its first months of operation, it has made a success of what used to be failing Trump Taj Mahal. This entailed a $500 million commitment on Hard Rock’s part, redoing the property from the minarets on the roof to the plumbing in the hotel rooms. Nothing was too small for Hard Rock’s attention. “Our first goal was to make sure that,” CEO Jim Allen explains, “when you arrive at the property, that there is no ties back to the previous ownership scheme … and I think we did a good job there.”

Now, fitted out with customary Hard Rock musical souvenirs and boasting live entertainment every night in at least one of two musical venues (one of them newly built), the casino is also making its presence felt at the slot machines and table games. Grossing over $1 million a day, Hard Rock came out of the blocks strong and just missed the second-place spot in its first full month of operation. Hard Rock International CEO Allen notes that his new pleasure palace was “just a couple hundred thousand dollars off the [second-place] Tropicana. We held extremely poorly and I think if we would have held anywhere near our normal hold percentage would have been clearly in second. So to get to be second in the market in our first month of operation is something we’re encouraged with.”

Hard Rock obtained the physical asset from Carl Icahn for a bargain-basement $50 million and proceeded to reinvest a half-billion dollars into the physical plant. That constituted a huge and much-needed vote of confidence in Atlantic City. “We believe the market still has a lot of opportunity. It’s still the second-largest gaming market in the United States,” says Allen. He adds the new Gov. Phil Murphy and new Atlantic City Mayor Frank Gilliam have been “a pleasure” to work with, as has been the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority and former Gov. Chris Christie.

Just up the Boardwalk, Hard Rock is getting additional rivalry from Ocean Resort, which opened the same late- June day as Hard Rock. Though it has not been performing as spectacularly as the music-themed casino, Ocean Resort is another property that demonstrates the importance of an impressively designed property to achieving success. Formerly the failed Revel, it joins some casinos that have had near-death experiences as the market waits to see how the addition of two megaresorts affects the viability of the Atlantic City area.

Although the Hard Rock has been one of the strongest — if not the very strongest — imprimaturs in gaming, the company stays firmly on message that it is an entertainment firm. Thus, the importance of having — and emphasizing — 300-plus events in Year One, with something to cater to almost any taste. “As far as how the property is being received by the general public it’s nothing short of amazing. We’ve had over 28 million [social-media] impressions, the hotel has just been packed, our entertainment events — whether it’s something family-friendly like a concert with Kelly Clarkson or country acts, rock ’n roll acts, Sugar Factory, obviously the world-famous Hard Rock Café — everything is exceeding expectations,” Allen reports.

While MGM Resorts International’s Borgata is unlikely to be surpassed anytime soon — it grosses over twice what Hard Rock and Tropicana do — Hard Rock is sitting pretty for a newcomer to the market while Ocean Resort slipped quickly into last place. As Allen understates, “We try to position the property as an entertainment destination and that certainly has been working very well for us.”

He’s also got irons in the fires in many other markets, even if Atlantic City has been grabbing the lion’s share of the headlines. In conjunction with the power behind the Hard Rock throne, Florida’s Seminole Tribe, the company has been dramatically redoing two of its signature Sunshine State properties. The company has committed $1.5 billion to a massive expansion of Hard Rock Hollywood, which is already iconic thanks to the in-progress 638-room hotel tower … in the shape of the body of a guitar. “Hard Rock locations are known on a global basis for some kind of a guitar element,” Allen says, “whether it’s part of the façade, or whether it’s part of the design itself. In this particular case, it’s just playing off that 40-year history.”

Hard Rock also promises thirty percent more gambling capacity (including 3,000 new slot machines, 193 new table games and a 46-seat poker room), a staggering 30 additional restaurants, bars, and lounges, a new entertainment venue, a full-service spa and a three-pool aquacade. The top beam of the hotel bears the signatures of Seminole tribesmen from Brighton, Immokalee, Big Cypress and Hollywood. New convention space will alsocharacterize the revamped casino, whose dramatically refashioned look will debut in autumn 2019.