A.C. is requesting proposals - lots of them

ATLANTIC CITY - Take my empty buildings and lots - please.

This is the message Atlantic City is sending, by issuing requests for proposals for, well, pretty much the entire town.

The properties available for reimagining range from a pier to a kiosk, from the Boardwalk to outer neighborhoods.

In all, 14 vacant lots and buildings owned by the city or, in a few cases, the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority are included in the RFPs.

Planning director Elizabeth Terenik is to discuss the properties at a noon meeting Wednesday in City Hall. Proposals are due by Aug. 11.

The properties include empty commercial lots far from the tourism zones and South Inlet residential lots. They include landmarks such as the picturesque but underused Garden Pier and the historic but rundown and vacant Comfort Station across from Boardwalk Hall.

The full RFPs can be found on the city's website, CityofAtlanticCity.org.

The goal, according to city officials, is not to make some quick cash just by selling the land, which would encourage speculators, but to encourage creative and sustainable development that would anticipate an Atlantic City less dependent on casinos and tourism, more hospitable to residents and the coveted millennials.

The city's threatened New Jersey casino monopoly bought a little time Tuesday as State Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D., Gloucester) told the Associated Press that a referendum to approve gambling beyond the seaside resort would not make it onto the November ballot.

Even as city finances remain tenuous, Gov. Christie weighs legislation restructuring casino taxes, city recreation and other departments face cutbacks, and a state-appointed emergency management team tries to mediate debts with creditors such as the Borgata, city officials such as Terenik are pursuing a future they say is not out of reach.

In an e-mail, she wrote that the mass RFPs' goal was "to activate the parcels with a viable project; bring revenue to the city through a sale or lease; create jobs and economic activity; build new market-rate for-sale housing."

The properties listed include the Garden Pier, across from the Revel site; vacant land along Atlantic Avenue between Texas and Georgia Avenues; and the vacant Comfort Station, long envisioned by city leaders as a cool coffee shop or restaurant.

Also included are three South Inlet parcels bordered by Atlantic, Massachusetts, and Vermont Avenues and Grammercy Place, which the city hopes will be developed as housing similar to the Northeast Inlet.

For the Garden Pier, now home to historical and art museums, the city envisions dining, entertainment, recreation, and amusements to "take advantage of the oceanfront and beachfront location."

The Comfort Station - officially the Kennedy Plaza West Pavilion - asks for historic rehabilitation of the exterior - estimated at $774,000 - offset by grants from the New Jersey Corporate Business Tax Historic Preservation Fund. As part of the Boardwalk Hall area, the Pavilion is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Other lots include the Delta Basin Homes on Maryland Avenue, which the city hopes will be developed for single-family houses that incorporate sustainability aspects; two lots along Atlantic near Texas Avenue; three lots along Arctic Avenue; a Boardwalk kiosk at Indiana Avenue; two lots at Route 30 and Pennsylvania Avenue; two commercial lots along Virginia Avenue; and several lots around Maryland and Baltic Avenues, which the city hopes to provide to a developer at no or low cost in exchange for residential development.