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Atlantic City's Showboat Casino gains new attraction.
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In an effort to compete with the popular Borgata Hotel, Harrah's Entertainment brought their Las Vegas roots to Atlantic City. The $800 million Borgata, which opened in 2002 and attracted the attention of tourists, subsequently topped former number-one Atlantic City casino Harrah's, and former number-two Showboat (also a Harrah's property). Harrah's Entertainment decided to respond.
To gain more foot traffic and a younger audience, Harrah's Entertainment sought a new attraction. The group enticed the House of Blues® (HOB) to come to Showboat, their Boardwalk property. To get the HOB, Harrah's first had to renovate the interior and exterior of its building that faced the Boardwalk, which would also include adding a 100-ft.-tall glass and glass-fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC) pylon beacon.
HOB is a home for live music and Southern-inspired cuisine in an environment that celebrates the African-American cultural contributions of blues music and folk art. In 1992, a converted historical house in Cambridge, MA, became the original HOB. Other locations soon followed. With enormous success throughout the country, including popular tourist areas like Las Vegas and Orlando (Downtown Disney), HOB seemed like a perfect choice to help draw attention to Showboat.
With HOB on board, architect Friedmutter Group (Atlantic City, NJ) and graphic design firm Gensler (San Francisco) developed a signage and graphics program that tied the HOB brand with the current Showboat architecture. As a design/build project, Broadway National, a New York City-based signage and lighting company, worked closely with the architect and graphic designer to develop the exterior façade. Broadway National served as sign engineer, fabricator and installer for the project.
Developing the beacon
The first step in the HOB project was to design/build the largest beacon of light on Atlantic City's Boardwalk. The Showboat Hotel & Casino is located on the Boardwalk's farthest eastern point.
Therefore, a light beacon needed to be seen from the other side of the Boardwalk and from inbound airplanes. The project team met multiple times to conclude that, to gain the most attention, the pylon beacon needed full illumination, glass and illuminated channel-letter identification.
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