So the feckless — and costly — Tropicana conservatorship of Justice Gary Stein is to drag on still further. Let’s see: Bids that were supposedly “unreasonably lower” but which Stein refuses to 
share with the public. A wholesale chucking-out of a bidding process which has dragged on for over half a year. A revelation that Stein has been playing footsie with other potential buyers, even after the process was closed. Bland reassurances that everything will go much faster this time around. (Remember, Stein was initially supposed to have this whole thing wrapped up last April).
As one exasperated newspaper reader puts it, “Fair market value is what the property is worth adn [sic] what people are willng to pay for it, not what you want the property to be worth!” Oh, and Stein wants to retain a second set of financial advisers. At the rate Stein is pissing money away, it’s a miracle the Trop can meet its payroll.
When the Last Trump (pun intended) sounds for Atlantic City, Stein will still be telling regulators he needs just a little more time — and they’ll be enabling him. Commissioners may claim to be “frustrated” with Stein’s glacial pace, but they’ve got a funny way of showing it.
Oh, and then there’s the inscrutable remark by New Jersey Casino Control Commission Chairwoman Linda Kassekert that it’s “impractical” to choose from amongst the Colony Capital, Cordish Cos., Palladino group and Planet Hollywood bids. Why, pray tell? They played by the rules, put their offers on the table and were entitled to fair consideration from Stein and the NJCCC, who instead have chosen to dither, drag and otherwise screw the pooch on what should have been a straightforward property disposition. Now there’s even talk of auctioning the Trop off in bankruptcy court — in which case there’s no assurance whatsover that it would wind up in good hands.
It’s an open question whether any of the now-spurned suitors will re-bid. Having been backhanded by Stein and the NJCCC, they’ve all the reason in the world to take their business elsewhere, and more power to them. One buyer’s representative, God bless her, actually upbraided Stein for his bungling and his nebulous inability to set an ‘acceptable’ sale price.
Of course, a New Jersey court could still return the Trop to the butterfingered hands of Columbia Sussex. In which case, all Stein and the NJCCC will have to show for themselves is an excellent ability to chase prospective buyers out of the Atlantic City market at a time when it needs every quality operator it can attract. Stein is smugly certain he can get north of $1 billion for the Trop. Now he’s got to prove it. And if he can’t, there’s going to be crates’ worth of egg on a many faces — as well there should be.
“I think it’s realistic in this sense,” said Stein with Panglossian optimism, “the market remains tight, but on the other hand, we know many of the interested buyers, and we’re much farther along than when we started.” Yes, much farther along … as in seven months, with no end in sight.
* Only 20% of the units in Trump International Hotel & Tower have closed — meaning that 80% of the building still can’t be rented out for hotel purposes. Trump’s response? The usual empty bombast: “Some of my buyers are richer than the banks,” which simply begs the question of why they haven’t paid for their condos yet.
(Update: According to Steve Friess, the unsold-condo figure is closer to 85%.)
Your Name Here Casino Resort: Whoops. Ian Bruce Eichner may have trademarked his in-foreclosure Cosmopolitan condo-hotel six ways from Sunday, but it looks like he should have covered his ass with Cosmopolitan the magazine. Now, with the property’s ownership up for grabs, Hearst Corp. has chosen an opportune moment to pounce with a trademark-infringement suit.
Is Hearst just kicking Eichner for the heck of it — or could this be a clever ploy to snap up some Strip real estate in lieu of a settlement?
