{"id":647,"date":"2012-06-03T15:18:07","date_gmt":"2012-06-03T22:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.constructonomics.com\/blog\/?p=647"},"modified":"2019-01-27T10:53:06","modified_gmt":"2019-01-27T17:53:06","slug":"revel-casino-the-long-awaited-opening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/03\/revel-casino-the-long-awaited-opening\/","title":{"rendered":"The Arrival of Revel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in the early part of 2008 we were in a very strange crossroads in this country. Everything was going\"IMG_0535\" so well, but it was kind of like one of those sunny days where you just barely see the darker clouds forming over the horizon and the temperature drops just enough to notice. Right about when the first drops of rain begin to fall, people start running for shelter.<\/p>\n

I moved from a hotel project in Vail, CO to Wilmington, Delaware to work for a steel contractor on the Revel Casino in April 2008. This kind of move, while probably overly aggressive and not necessarily right, was consistent with the lunacy that was going on in not only the financial industry but almost every industry at that time. It was like there was nowhere to go but up and nothing was going to stop us from pushing things harder and harder. Well, the tensile strength of bubble gum became the limiting factor in determining when this joyride was going to end and in exactly 11 months from my move to the east coast, I was standing in an unemployment line and wondering how the frick this happened.<\/p>\n

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I found myself uttering these same words (to myself of course) when I strolled through the operational Revel Casino for the first time this weekend. Even though I hold a bit of bitterness toward this place, I do think it is a pretty fantastic casino and absolutely what Atlantic City needs as it competes with casinos in Pennsylvania and Delaware. Thank the PayPal casino UK<\/a> movement for making it easier to transfer funds into casinos, no more bringing huge amounts of physical cash. I think New Jersey Governor Chris Christie felt the same way when he spearheaded a $260 million tax credit plan to refinance the project after it was halted in the spring of 2009 with the exterior nearly complete. However, there was still plenty of work (mostly administrative) left on the project despite what was being told to the thousands of employees being discarded.<\/p>\n

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And for the record, after thinking briefly about skipping out on my bill at a Tapas restaurant in the casino, I decided against it as if the place wasn’t responsible for up-heaving my life. For this, I am very proud of myself.<\/p>\n

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Morgan Stanley was the 90% owner of Revel Entertainment and sunk about $1.2 billion into the project. In 2009 they put their stake of the project up for sale and then in the bank\u2019s fourth quarter 2010 earnings statement, Morgan Stanley noted a decline in the value of its investment in Revel to $28 million.<\/p>\n

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For the love of God, Morgan Stanley\u00a0 lost $1 billion on Revel (Don’t worry, I think the execs still got a small bonus that year just to keep their beaks wet). For those of you who don’t feel like doing the math, Morgan Stanley’s stake in the casino had decreased in value by 97.5%. Hopefully the termination of my five figure salary eased the pain for them a bit.<\/p>\n

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But honestly, this isn’t (entirely) about poking fun at greedy banks and casino owners, because the building is truly awesome and was the product of some of the most talented architects, engineers, and contractors we have in this country. I watched (and helped a little) a member of my team at the steel contractor develop steel fabrication and erection sequences that made my head explode. I started calling the job the “Manhattan Project”, but unfortunately, while rather bright, I didn’t exactly bring Einstein-like ingenuity to the team. It was still kinda fun though.<\/p>\n

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The construction schedule took lunacy to the next level. During the winter of 2009, we erected steel for twenty hours per day. This involved running two 10 hour shifts of iron workers and lighting the 20 acre site like an amusement park. The overtime operation was tremendously costly and proved to be all for naught as the project was then halted for two years in the spring.<\/p>\n

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Although it could have gone either way for a period of time, I was able to survive the Revel Casino project, and for that I am honestly grateful. However, there were others that were not so lucky. Tragedy struck the project management team when three executives at Revel, a project manager from Tishman Construction, two members of a New Jersey glazing contractor, and two pilots were killed when their private jet crashed after a botched landing in Minnesota en route to a meeting with a glass supplier. Also, in 2011 three concrete workers were struck by lightning on the site, killing one.<\/p>\n

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There will always be a special place in my self-employed heart for the Revel Casino. From all the blood, sweat, tears, and even loss of life on the construction of the Revel Casino we are left with a truly magnificent building. I just kinda hope that after all of this we can look a little more closely at the storm clouds beginning to form and take note of the temperature drop. Perhaps we can then seek a little shelter prior to the skies opening up and the rain beginning to pour.\u00a0 However, I’m afraid that I’m asking for a lot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in the early part of 2008 we were in a very strange crossroads in this country. Everything was going so well, but it was kind of like one of those sunny days where you just barely see the darker clouds forming over the horizon and the temperature drops just enough to notice. Right about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1732,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions\/1732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}