Last summer, amid the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world, New Jersey convened the Restart and Recovery Working Group to come up with ideas to help a post-pandemic Atlantic City. Its report will serve as a guide to help the state help revitalize all aspects of the city.
The group covers workforce development, economic diversification, public health and wellness and community outreach.
“This report represents my administration’s commitment to helping the Atlantic City community come out of Covid-19 stronger and more resilient than when this public health emergency started,” said New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy. “It also demonstrates our determination to build on the great progress that was being made pre-pandemic.”
According to the report, the Boardwalk is “in an advanced state of disrepair and in several places could well collapse in the near future. If the meteorologists are correct in predicting future costal storms, there is also the possibility that one of those storms could wipe out the Boardwalk in its present condition, unless it has been rebuilt, with disastrous and wide-spread negative implications for everything that we want to do to restart and recover Atlantic City.”
The reports suggests rebuilding the Boardwalk within the next three years.
Upgrading the appearance of Pacific and Atlantic avenues could do for Atlantic City what the Inner Harbor revamp did for Baltimore, the report said. The city also needs to increase home ownership, encourage development of vacant lots, enforce building codes and relocate social services out of the tourism district.
“This is an important step to have the government of the state draw up a blueprint as to how Atlantic City can move forward. And they did that with the input of residents, stakeholders,” said Councilman Kaleem Shabazz.
Mayor Marty Small Jr. added, “Make no mistake: Atlantic City is coming back for everything and more that the Covid-19 pandemic took away.”
Recommendations are all well and good. But paying for all this is quite another thing. The report indicated one way to help pay for these recommendations could be the sale of legalized recreational marijuana, according to the Associated Press.
“The state should consider the opportunities that may be created by new initiatives, including the legalization of recreational use marijuana, as potential sources of political and financial support for the efforts to restart and recover Atlantic City,” the report said.
In other New Jersey tourism news, it should come as no surprise that hotel jobs suffered a setback from the coronavirus pandemic. A study from the American Hotel & Lodging Association estimated that the industry lost more than 15,000 positions in New Jersey alone. Between 2019 and 2020 the numbers fell from 54,498 to 38,647. The industry has added almost 7,000 positions so far in 2021.
“Clearly the pandemic had an impact on the entire hospitality sector,” said Michael Chait, president of the Greater Atlantic City Chamber. “The restrictions, specifically capacity and travel restrictions, caused a lot of your hospitality sector employers to reduce staff.”
The industry should bounce back, particularly in Atlantic City, Chait told the Press of Atlantic City.
“We (the resort) are a tourism and travel destination, and I do think there is going to be a very strong desire for people to dine out, travel and stay overnight again,” Chait said.
Despite hotel jobs still not recovered from the pandemic, the industry faces a shortage of people to fill existing positions.
“There are some people who have a fear to go back because of the pandemic, the additional $300 from unemployment, and some employees have transitioned to other jobs all together because of the closures and uncertainty in the industry,” he said.
To combat the lack of labor, the chamber is working with the Casino Association of New Jersey and the Atlantic County Workforce Development Board to promote the industry as a source of work.
Nationwide, the hospitality industry shed 3.1 million jobs as a result of the pandemic, or some one-third of all unemployed people in the country, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The rate of employment in Atlantic City last August fell 21 percent from 2019 levels.
“With hotels expected to end 2021 down 500,000 jobs, based on the pre-pandemic ratio, an additional 1.3 million hotel-supported jobs are in jeopardy this year without additional support from Congress,” the BLS said.
