ATLANTIC CITY, N.J.
Local and state officials, along with Caesars Entertainment executives, looked on recently as the Harrah’s Atlantic City Waterfront Conference Center had its final steel beam signed and installed, marking a significant step toward the building’s completion.
The $125.8 million meetings facility connected to Harrah’s Atlantic City will be crucial in ensuring a successful future for Atlantic City when it opens in August 2015, officials said.
“There are Fortune 500 companies in the area that do large product launches and have national sales meetings and are forced to go to Dallas or Orlando or Las Vegas," said Michael Massari, Caesars Entertainment senior vice president of national meetings and events. "These are all fine destinations, but we want to see them be able to stay at home in the state of New Jersey."
Harrah’s Waterfront Conference Center will be the largest convention center-hotel complex from Baltimore to Boston, with its two 50,000-square-foot ballrooms. The ballrooms can be divided into up to 29 individual sections and will offer technologically advanced meetings space that can be utilized by up to 5,000 attendees. In addition, Harrah’s Atlantic City offers over 2,500 hotel rooms that will be directly accessible from the meeting space.
Approximately a third of the United States population lives within driving distance of Atlantic City, and the Northeast captures $16 billion of the nation’s meetings and conventions, yet Atlantic City currently only captures one percent of that business.
With the new facility opening in 2015, the city hopes to improve significantly on that figure.
