Donald Trump’s name is gone from Atlantic City’s casino industry, but the influence of his family is still being felt—namely through son in law Jared Kushner.
Kushner, through his real estate company, controls a seven-acre waterfront site across form the city’s maritime park Gardner’s Basin. The site is referred to locally as the Garwood Mills site after a department store that burnt down on the site in 1976.
The city has been trying to redevelop its Northeast Inlet section with hopes of creating a new commercial tourist zone centering on Gardner’s Basin and a $50 million extension of the city’s Boardwalk into the Inlet.
However, according to a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philly.com, Kushner’s land would be an integral part of redevelopment plans if the city could regain control of the property.
According to the report, the city had control of the land, but sold it to Kushner’s company in 2004. Though the deal did have protections against a developer sitting on the land, that clause was later changed and tied to market conditions, which have severely worsened in the city in recent years. That has allowed Kushner’s company to hold the land without building, frustrating city officials.
“If we got it back, it’d be really simple,” Elizabeth Terenik, the city’s planning director told the paper. “We’d do a request for proposals, which allows us to name a redeveloper and then negotiate. We’d seek someone we feel confident would be consistent with the city’s vision.”
Kushner and his company Kushner Co. declined to comment for the report.
Kushner originally paid $2 million for the site and proposed a $175 million condominium complex. That plan was later scaled back and then eventually scrapped.
The problem for city officials stems from the fact that in 2009—under a previous administration—a change was made to the clause keeping a developer from sitting on the land. That condition was changed to tie it to “market-driven conditions.” Since Atlantic City’s real estate market has fallen as the city’s casinos have lost business, Kushner has been able to keep the property.
Terenik told the paper that the reverter clause in the city’s redevelopment agreement uses residential markers to prevent the city from obtaining the land.
“It took into consideration, if the market was bad, they did not have to act on it,” she said. “In other words, it would allow them more time.”
The property is currently assessed at about $1.3 million and had a tax bill of $46,000 in 2016, according to the Inquirer.
The property also came up in a 2007 bribery scandal that saw three city councilmen plead guilty to accepting bribes from developers, but Kushner Co. was never charged in the scandal.
