| Claridge Atlantic City | |
|---|---|
| Address | Park Place & The Boardwalk |
| Opening date | December 1930 (Claridge Hotel) July 1981 (Claridge Casino) |
| Closing date | December 30, 2002 |
| No. of rooms | 400 |
| Casino type | Land |
| Owner | Caesars Entertainment |
| Previous names | Claridge Hotel Del Webb's Claridge Hotel and Casino Claridge Hotel and Casino |
| Website | www.ballyac.com/claridge |
Claridge Atlantic City[1][2] was a casino[3] and currently is a Hotel Tower for Bally's Atlantic City in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Formerly known as the "Del Webb's Claridge Hotel and Casino" and "Claridge Hotel and Casino", the resort was officially acquired by Bally's on December 30, 2002. Located between Park Place and Indiana Avenue, with an attached parking structure extending to Ohio Avenue, the Claridge is set off the Boardwalk behind Brighton Park. The Claridge stands next to the site where the Sands Atlantic City used to be located.
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The Claridge is different from most Atlantic City resorts, since it did not grow out of a modest boarding house. It was the idea of Philadelphia architect John McShain who designed the 24-story,[4][5] 400-room hotel. Opened in 1930 during The Great Depression, the Claridge became the last of the great hotels built in Atlantic City near the Boardwalk; no new resorts rose in the city until the 1960s when a Howard Johnsons hotel was built along the boardwalk. Due to the hotel’s tall, slick, slender appearance it gained the nickname “The Skyscraper By The Sea.”
The Claridge was a successful hotel during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Marilyn Monroe was a special guest there in the 1950s when she was grand marshal of the annual Miss America Pageant. Despite Atlantic City’s downturn as a premiere vacation resort in the 1960s, the hotel continued to operate and survived into the casino era.
In 1981 the Del Webb Corporation, owners of The Mint Hotel and Casino in Downtown Las Vegas, bought the Claridge and turned it in to a casino. The hotel was expanded with 200 new guest rooms being built. The Claridge had the distinction of being the last of the pre-casino Atlantic City hotels to be refurbished into a casino. New Jersey then Governor Brendan Byrne had been dissatisfied with what he called “Patch and Paint” jobs of the city’s old resorts, this had been done with Resorts Atlantic City, and the Dennis Hotel, which is part of Bally's Atlantic City, and lobbied hard for the old structures to be torn down in favor of new resorts.
In July 1981 the new casino opened under the name Del Webb’s Claridge Hotel and Casino (the hotel eventually became known as Del Webb’s Claridge and eventually just The Claridge). The hotel saw success early on but as bigger casinos were built in the city, the Claridge had a hard time competing as a small casino in a large market. In the 1990s a parking garage was added.
In 2001, Park Place Entertainment purchased[6] the property and a year later formally announced plans to merge operations with Bally's Atlantic City. As a result, the Claridge became a hotel tower for Bally's. In 2009 all of the Claridge's own restaurants ceased operation but a small cafe, "The Bagel & Doughnut Connection", that continues to operate in the Gateway area that connects the Claridge Tower with Bally's.
In 2009, the Claridge's casino floor was rebranded as theRIDGE, a dance club style casino. It features table games with a dance floor and DJ in the center. The Claridge went through a $3 million restoration of all its rooms and a facelift of the outside structure during the summer of 2010 through spring 2011. This also included the outside structure for a total amount of $20 million.
| Preceded by Haddon Hall Hotel |
Tallest Building in Atlantic City 1930—1989 370 ft |
Succeeded by Bally's Atlantic City |
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