Ocean Casino Resort Atlantic City is spending money so its beach will be on par with others on the Boardwalk when the city’s busiest weekend begins.
Ocean is spending $700,000 of its own money to rebuild the badly eroded beach in front of the property, with a plan to unveil a new, 110-foot-wide beach on Memorial Day weekend. According to a report in the Associated Press, the beach had eroded to 5-8 feet wide in some places, and General Manager Bill Callahan decided the property couldn’t wait for the next government-funded beach replenishment a year or two down the road.
Callahan told the AP he and his officials looked out one day last fall to see very little sand between the Boardwalk and the ocean, and feared there would soon be no beach. “That would be a horrible guest experience,” he said. “It’s like, ‘Come to an unbelievable $2.5 billion resort and not have a beach.’ We just couldn’t have that.”
While it is rare for private parties to fund their own beach replenishment, it is a first for the Atlantic City casino industry. Ocean’s contractor will dump 12,810 tons of sand on the beach, then smooth the sand, which matches the color and consistency of existing beach sand.
“This is part of the experience,” Callahan told the AP. “You can’t have a resort without a beach.”
