Harrah's conference center to woo a different Atlantic City visitor

ATLANTIC CITY - With a group of meeting planners in tow and a clear blue sky as a backdrop, Caesars Entertainment Inc. executives showed off progress Friday on the company's $125.8 million Harrah's Resort Waterfront Conference Center, which is designed to draw business travelers to a city that is losing four, maybe five, casinos this year.

The steel frame of the project, supported by $45 million from the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority and $24.1 million in tax breaks that can be earned over 20 years, is just weeks away from completion. The center, adjacent to Harrah's, is scheduled for completion next summer, with the first meeting planned for September 2015, company officials said.

The goal is to create a kind of space for business meetings - distinct from conventions and trade shows - that now only exists in places such as Orlando, Dallas, and Las Vegas, said Michael Massari, a Caesars senior vice president.

Massari touted the flexibility of the center's two 50,000 square-feet ballrooms, each of which can be divided into 27 smaller meeting rooms - and hundreds of combinations of big and small spaces.

"You can change this thing like a chameleon in the course of a day," Massari said.

But that flexibility was not what attracted UniPro Food Service Inc., an Atlanta cooperative for about 650 independent food-service distributors, said Kieki Levy, UniPro's senior manager for meetings and conventions.

The key was that the Harrah's center will be able to offer one-stop shopping for a meeting of 1,400 people over four days in October 2015.

"It helps savings-wise if you can get rooms and food at one place," Levy said.

This year the company is holding its meeting in Minneapolis, where it will use the convention center and three hotels, Levy said.

Jeff Moody, chief executive of Rita's Water Ice in Trevose, was planning to sign a contract Friday for a franchisee meeting at Harrah's in 2016. He said he liked the flexibility.

"We need a bunch of different configurations," Moody said.

Caesars officials hope the Harrah's center, which is oriented so that visitors do not have to go near the casino, marks a major step in the evolution of Atlantic City.

"Will there be some gambling? Sure, but it's really about a different customer that doesn't come here currently," said Rick Mazer, president and general manager for Harrah's.

Nationwide, Caesars generates $360 million in annual revenue from business meetings, Massari said. The Harrah's center is projected to reach $30 million in annual revenue at maturity, he said.

While Caesars executives were wooing meeting planners, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement released gambling revenue figures for August. Overall revenue, including Showboat, which closed eight hours before the month ended, were down 1.2 percent, to $294.4 million from $298.1 million a year ago.

Six of the seven casinos that are in no apparent danger of closing posted gains.