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ATLANTIC CITY — DEEM Enterprises is seeking an extension of the six-months the city granted to pursue building a $3.2 billion car-centric residential and commercial project on Bader Field.
“Right now we are looking for an extension for a number of reasons,” DEEM principal and local attorney Dan Gallagher said Wednesday, including details to finalize about the title to the land and Green Acres restrictions.
Mayor Marty Small Sr. signed a memorandum of agreement with DEEM on March 24, giving the company time to convince the city and state it has the financial and technical expertise to complete the project, which includes a 2.4-mile auto racetrack for residents’ use.
“You have six months to show us what you’ve got,” Small said then.
The six-month period ended late last month.
“We will have a major announcement regarding the DEEM project very soon that the taxpayers of the Great City of Atlantic City should be thrilled about!” Small said in a written statement in response to questions Monday.
There is some good news, Gallagher said, about the plume of aviation fuel known to be under the historic airport site. DEEM has said it will clean that up as part of its development.
“The drillings and borings for the brownfield issues came out a lot more favorable than we thought,” Gallagher said. “The plume is not as big and there are not as many contaminants (as expected).”
At about the halfway mark, DEEM had paid $500,000 to the city, provided information to state agencies and city professionals, and begun soil tests and a traffic study, according to one of its principals.
“The big requirement is to ... prove various aspects of the proposed development to many state agencies,” DEEM Enterprises CEO Erick Feitshans said in a phone interview in July.
Feitshans, who works in the television and motion picture industry and is based in Los Angeles, said DEEM would have liked a full-year exclusivity period but will get as much done as it can in six months.
DEEM was also working to line up $750 million in investment needed to proceed, Feitshans said then.
The $750 million would cover the first phase of building, he said, which would be “horizontal construction costs” related to site remediation, raising the site about six feet, and getting everything ready to build on through infrastructure and design work.
“One of the key components the state and city need to see as part of the MOU is financial capability, to be able to finance the project,” Feitshans said. “We’re confident we can do it in that amount of time.”
The group had already spent about $25 million to date, Feitshans said, on engineering, architectural and brownfield work over the past few years.
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