Atlantic City Sands Casino to be Demolished

Pinnacle Entertainment Inc. will buy the Sands Hotel and Casino and a neighboring site along the Atlantic City Boardwalk for about $250 million, the companies said Tuesday.

The 26-year-old Sands will be leveled and replaced with another facility, a much larger casino.

Under the deal, Pinnacle will pay an additional $20 million for other real estate and for some tax-related benefits to buy the properties from owners including financier Carl Icahn. Icahn took control of the Sands in 2000.

Las Vegas-based Pinnacle Entertainment, which operates casinos in Nevada, Louisiana, Indiana, the Bahamas and Argentina, would acquire 18 contiguous acres, some of it along the resort city's famed Boardwalk.
Pinnacle and Sands said the casino will be closed within 70 days.

Employees will get 60 days' notice of the expected date and will receive severance packages and help finding new jobs, including an opportunity to apply for work at any of the casinos operated by the two companies. George Toth, the Sands president, said he notified nearly 500 of the casino's 2,100 employees during a meeting Tuesday morning. 

'After spending many months reviewing various projects for the property, it became patently clear that a shutdown of The Sands was necessary and inevitable to make room for a great new casino,' Icahn said in a statement.

'We also concluded that this was the most propitious time to undertake the shutdown given the robust employment environment in Atlantic City.'

Besides the Sands, which was one of the first casinos to open in Atlantic City, the deal involves the site of the former Traymore Hotel. That would give the new owners oceanfront property and room to expand.

The news comes about a month after Donald Trump announced the Atlantic City Steel Pier will be closed forever by October, to be replaced by a mall and condos.