Color me stupid but I figured that, with a new marketing team in place, to say nothing of a new CEO, Revel Resort was going to stay its new course awhile. Turns out the property was dickering with prospective buyers as far back as June. Talks are close to fruition, the New York Post reports, with Hard Rock International to purchase Revel. It makes sense. Hard Rock scrapped its own build-it-from-scratch casino plans in Atlantic City earlier this year. But purchasing Revel, Hard Rock can get a lot more casino — and potentially for far less money. “Hard Rock, if it reaches a deal to buy the 1,399-room Revel in the next several weeks, will likely shut it down for a renovation and a Hard Rock re-flagging , according to a source close to the matter,” reports Josh Kosman. So much for the work of Fine Point Group and current CEO Scott Kreeger. Someday, somebody is going to have a business plan for Revel and stick to it. As for now, it’s a Chinese fire drill. Is it any wonder the place has had so many troubles?
Hard Rock’s interest in Revel may be a stalking horse: The company’s endgame is described as a racino at Meadowlands, far closer to the coveted New York City market. Let’s hope not.
Wisconsin‘s Menominee Tribe is starting to give specifics on how it would 
spend the money from a Kenosha casino. In a word, infrastructure. Rather than make per capita distributions to tribal members, Chairman Craig Corn would like to see casino dollars put into improving quality of life issues on the reservation. A huge increase in diabetes among the tribe and a school where pipes regularly burst are among the concerns. “Get those resources to our elders,” Corn says of his goal. “We owe that to them. They carried the torch until we got here. They made sure we had something when we got here. With that same mentality, we owe it to the ones that didn’t get here yet.” Gov. Scott Walker (R) continues to play his cards close to the vest but the longer the process is drawn out, the more effective the Menominee’s message becomes.
The Menominee picked up the equivocal support of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). While most of what Ryan said was crystal clear, he remarks on the Menominee stalemate were far from helpful. “So how you have an arrangement where the Potawatomi have a stake in Kenosha, I don’t know how you’d do it. Have some kind of an arrangement where they can make it mutually beneficial.” Uh, OK. Support and opposition to the casino has shattered partisan lines into fragments, though readers of political tea leaves continue to believe that Walker is swinging to a pro-Menominee stance.
Congratulations to MGM Resorts International CEO Jim Murren, newly appointed to the National Infrastructure Advisory Council. This gig should enable him to keep up-close and personal tabs on MGM National Harbor.
Revel becoming a Hard Rock may be the best business plan for the place! It needs a strong brand and a deep database of players. I always thought that Trump Plaza would work well for them, being in a marquee location adjacent to Boardwalk Hall, but as you pointed out, they can probably get Revel for less than the price they were going to put into developing their own spot! If I remember correctly, early on, Morgan Stanley was thinking about teaming up with HR to develop the place and ultimately choose Kevin DeSanctis. Ironic
Renovate? What the heck would they renovate? The place is literally brand new. Unless they plan to strip out all of the really neat parts, because that would suck.