Daily News – Business
Signs of rebirth dot down-and-out Atlantic City area by Robin L. Palley Daily News Staff Writer
When Jack Studnicky looks at the Inlet waterfront in Atlantic City, he doesn’t see the slums and the boarded-up, burned-out buildings that could as well be thought of downtown Dresden after the war.
He envisions Society Hill, Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, New York’s Greenwich Village and Upper West Side, all former slums that today are riding a wave of luxurious regeneration.
Right in the center of the scene, Studnicky sees the Flagship, a $60-million, 30-story, 354-unit condominium with a doorman out front and a four-story waterfall in the lobby.
The tower is one of the many proposed projects for the Inlet section. It’s slated to rise on Maine Avenue, facing the ocean at the very tip of the island resort.
What makes this one different from the rest of the projects on the oceanfront is that Studnicky doesn’t just envision The Flagship. He’s already selling the Flagship, condominium by condominium, to people who will want a few rooms in a tower that will have state-of-the-art security, valet-parking, a swimming pool, a health club, gourmet restaurants, lounges, even an on-site management company. The management company will rent out condominiums by the day, like hotel rooms, at rates comparable with casino hotel room prices.
“It’s called the Flagship because it’s the beginning of something new in the Inlet, of the redevelopment of this waterfront,” Studnicky says. And even though construction isn’t slated to begin until March and completion isn’t planned until 1987, Studnicky started taking deposits on condominiums early last month.
“I have already anchored 250 sales out of 354 units,” Studnicky says. “We’re doing so well because Atlantic City is so short on hotel rooms, and people realize that they can buy a condominium, use it sometimes themselves, and have it rented out the rest of the time to meet the need for rooms down here.”
Condominiums are priced from $125,000 to more than $300,000. The developer behind the project is Joseph Massaro of Pittsburgh, working with Atlantic City natives Anthony Myora and Stephen Frankel.
Studnicky is a real estate and marketing specialist who also has sold condominiums in the Ocean Club and Enclave condominiums in Atlantic City and in the Beach House in Margate.
Gary Sawhill, an independent planner in the resort, agrees with Studnicky’s view that the future of the Inlet is “absolutely upscale usage.”
“The Inlet’s the most dramatic piece of real estate in Atlantic City in terms of its natural advantages,” he says.
