By Michael Hill
Correspondent
In the latest “power” struggle over energizing the 6 million square foot Revel, a federal judge blocked new owner Glenn Straub’s Polo North Company from hooking any power source to equipment belonging to ACR Energy.
Straub told NJTV News it’s confusing because all agencies aren’t on the same page.
“We have to go ahead and just figure out what agency is making sense, and sometimes I may step on some agency’s toes because another agency says don’t do this and the other agency says don’t do that and you have a judge that says don’t do this and don’t do that. Well we’ll just go ahead and connect to what we believe is our equipment,” he said.
What does ACR own? That’s what the parties and the court have to sort out. But an attorney told the court ACR’s equipment is not designed to have temporary equipment — such as diesel-powered generators — connected to it, saying that would risk death and injury.
The court’s temporary order comes nine days after ACR turned off Revel’s power. The vacant building and the energy supplier have had countless hours of talks but failed to agree over how much Revel should pay for power.
“I’m not going to buy my energy from them. They produce the plan on our property and it says directly when we got it from the bankruptcy judge if we don’t buy our energy from them because they were gouging the market, and you can repeat that 100 times, that’s why people walked away from $11 million deposits on this property. That’s why they bankrupt the people before us. It’s not going to happen,” Straub said.
An attorney for ACR Energy did not return our calls. Atlantic City has revoked Straub’s certificate of occupancy and fined him $5,000 a day for failing to have a working fire suppression system to fight a potential fire above the seventh floor.
Straub says he plans to power Revel through generator and use four large pumps to push water up 50 floors. He says long term he plans to energize Revel through his acquisition of neighboring Showboat from Stockton University, but to indicate just how bitter the battle is with ACR, ACR issued a myths and facts statement Thursday questioning “how a public university can contract to sell a major asset without a public a bidding process.”
With all of the legal fights Straub is having getting power to the building, a Revel neighbor says it seems inhospitable to the new owner.
“I’m his first neighbor,” said Bill Terrigino.
Banquet server Terrigino lives right across the street from Revel and he put up a sign and offered power through an extension cord to Straub.
“We have to show Mr. Straub that this is what we’re about in Atlantic City is hospitality and he has not been shown that,” Terrigino said. “I’m telling him welcome into the neighborhood and Atlantic City and hope you do well and I’ll help you every inch of the way.”
Straub says, “That’s pretty clever. Three hundred homes were torn down around him and there’s only five homes left and he happens to be one of them. It’s very courtrous of him to offer his extension cord from his heater in his house to try and power this thing but I think Little light on electric but I do respect his humor and I respect the fact that he’s willing to help.”
Straub says he’d like more people in Atlantic City to be that helpful.