NEW YORK – Atlantic City will auction off the right to press the button to implode a former Trump casino, all in the name of a good cause.
The Trump Plaza, closed since 2014, was US President Donald Trump's first property in the US coastal gambling town in which he came to own several properties.
The former casino, which opened in 1984, has undergone little to no maintenance since shuttering, and on several occasions during storms, pieces of its exterior have fallen onto the seaside promenade that runs alongside the building.
Since 2016, the two-building complex has belonged to billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who was one of Trump's main Atlantic City financiers.
In mid-June, Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small announced the building's demolition, after taking legal action over what he considered to be a danger to residents.
On Wednesday the mayor announced that the right to press the button triggering the building’s January 29 implosion will be auctioned to benefit the youth organization Boys & Girls Club of Atlantic City.
"Now is the time to end an era and replace it with something new," said New Jersey-based Bodnar's Auction.
Icahn has not said what he will do with the land once the building is destroyed.
Trump had already filed a lawsuit in 2014 asking that his name be removed from the building's facade, believing that its presence there was bad for the Trump name and brand.
The former real estate developer has owned up to four casinos in the northeast gambling capital: apart from Trump Plaza there was also Trump World's Fair which closed in 1999, Trump Marina which was sold by creditors in 2011, and the Trump Taj Mahal which closed in 2016.
The subsidiary that ran the president's Atlantic City properties, Trump Entertainment Resorts, filed for bankruptcy three times, in 2004, 2009 and 2014, weighed down by debt each time. – AFP, December 17, 2020
