Jim Allen, the Atlantic City native who has gone on to head Hard Rock Entertainment and Seminole Gaming, began his homecoming Thursday by announcing that he would follow up his acquisition of the Taj Mahal with at least $500 million in re-investments into the property.
In his remarks, delivered during a keynote address to the East Coast Gaming Congress at Harrah’s Atlantic City, he emphasized that both the beleaguered Taj, originally built by Donald Trump, and Atlantic City as a whole are positioned for a turnaround.

“I think Atlantic City has a tremendous amount of great days in front of it. It doesn’t matter what happened in the past. The reality is we still have a market of 30 million people within a car drive’s distance,” he said referring to the New York, Philadelphia and Washington market.
Hard Rock paid around $50 million for the four million square-foot property, according to the Press of Atlantic City, but the $500 million renovation tab is far steeper than initially projected.
“When we first bought it, we thought we would spend $350 million, then it became $375 million, then it became $400 million. We are now committed to putting a minimum of $500 million into that building,” Allen said, adding that aside from the Borgata, “There is no better building in Atlantic City than the Taj Mahal. The bones of the building are awesome.”
Allen insisted that Hard Rock is uniquely positioned to take on the risk associated with the Taj project.
“We truly have the strongest balance sheet of anyone ever in the history of gaming,” he said. “We’re the only company that has received, and still maintains an investment grade rating from Moody’s, Standard & Poors and Fitch Ratings. We’re the lowest-leveraged company in the history of gaming.”
Hard Rock has also taken steps to bring the local unions on board, in an effort to prevent a similar showdown to the one that ultimately caused the property to close last fall.
“I’ve already met with all the unions,” Allen said. “There’s going to be no dispute between Local 54 and Hard Rock. I’m not interested in some fight over something that doesn’t matter. We’ll treat people fairly and in a positive way.”
Touching on a theme that popped up frequently at the ECGC, Allen emphasized that Hard Rock’s goal is to grow the Atlantic City market by attracting new types of customers and gamblers to the city, and not by cannibalizing other properties.
“We are looking to compete in a national marketplace. We are not looking to steal the customer from Harrah’s or Resorts,” he said, insisting that the city maintains a competitive advantage and remains a great place to do business vis-a-vis neighboring markets because of its low tax rate.
“Has anybody walked the casinos in Pennsylvania lately? It’s hard to reinvest in a building when you’re paying 45-50 percent of your revenue to the state.”