Five years ago, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie declared that: "Atlantic City is dying." He then intended to turn Atlantic City into "Las Vegas East", but such plan failed as four major casinos closed down in 2014, including the Revel Casino Hotel, which was built in part through state money.
While life in Atlantic City may have improved in previous months, nothing is still that certain. It is for this reason that a known global architecture firm, Perkins+Will, designed its future in a totally different way. The firm did not have entertainment and tourism in mind as it plans to convert Atlantic City into a research center for climate change and coastal resiliency. Perkins+Will recommends that Atlantic City Convention Center be turned into a "civic-scale academy" where leaders from all over the world will be trained on resiliency doctrine, techniques and standards.
Daniel Windsor, Senior Urban Designer and Senior Associate at Perkins+Wil explains: "We're not suggesting that Atlantic City is doomed and they should fold in their cards." He went further by saying that "We're just thinking there's a lot of alignment between what's happening in Atlantic City and the gap in resiliency preparedness."
According to Windsor, it was the Planning Principal and Chair of Perkins+Wil's Resiliency Task Force, Janice Barnes, who came up with the campaign. Barnes worked with the Rockefeller Foundation's Capacity-Building Academies and has had experience training leaders on climate and sustainability. Through it, Windsor shares that a niche was uncovered and a gap was filled in the discussion on the preparation of the world for climate change and resilience is in need of a headquarters.
Atlantic City, which measures four square miles, is about the size of a medium college campus and has flexible spaces for conferences and presentations. The basements which presently houses slot machines can be made into wind tunnels and laboratory for other studies. A recent Perkins+Will brief states that "there's little that the city would need to do structurally to re-jigger these buildings as research institutions."
Moreover, through a partnership with universities in different countries, an Atlantic City 2.0 shall unite the physical space requirement of the different research centers all over the world.
