Formica Says Atlantic City Is Losing Convention Business as Push for Major Center Renovation Grows

ATLANTIC CITY — The debate over the future of the Sheraton is rapidly expanding into a much larger effort to overhaul Atlantic City's convention infrastructure, with CRDA board member Frank Formica saying the resort is already being rejected for — and in some cases losing — convention business because of conditions at the convention campus.

Formica, speaking in separate interviews this week on News Talk 1400 and 92.3 WOND, said reports provided by Visit Atlantic City have convinced him that preserving the Sheraton's hotel-room inventory alone isn't enough.

Atlantic City also needs to reinvest substantially in the Convention Center itself, he said.

“Right now we're on a mission, a critical mission, to refurbish our convention center, and everybody seems to be on the same page here,” Formica said Tuesday on The Don Williams Show.

Formica's comments come as publicly available tourism data show Atlantic City's convention business running behind last year's pace in several important categories.

Through July, conventions, trade shows and meetings generated 67,689 room nights, down 19% from 83,323 during the same period in 2025, according to Visit Atlantic City data published by Stockton University's LIGHT tourism research project.

Attendance was down 15% and estimated delegate spending was down 15%, from approximately $87.7 million to $74.8 million.

Those numbers alone don't establish why business declined, and they do not prove that conditions at the Convention Center or Sheraton caused the decreases.

Formica, however, says reports presented to CRDA indicate the condition of the convention campus has already become an issue when Atlantic City competes for business.

‘We are getting turned down or canceled’

Formica said Visit Atlantic City President and CEO Gary Musich and his team have provided CRDA with reports detailing the challenges facing Atlantic City's convention business.

“We have gotten plenty of comprehensive substantive reports from Gary Musich, who does a great job and his team, to try to bring conventions here,” Formica said.

“And literally we are getting, at this point because of the Sheraton's condition, but more importantly because of the convention center's exhibit space condition, we are getting turned down or canceled, and that's not good.”

South Jersey NewsBeat has not independently identified individual conventions that canceled or rejected Atlantic City specifically because of the physical condition of the Convention Center.

But Formica made similar warnings a day earlier during an extended interview on Off The Press with Scott Cronick.

He said Visit Atlantic City officials have warned about potentially substantial losses if Atlantic City cannot maintain a competitive convention campus and approximately 500 hotel rooms adjacent to the Convention Center.

“Once our Meet AC people, Visit AC people told me, we're going to lose millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue-generating convention if we do not maintain 500 rooms,” Formica said, “that's why I had to start telling people about it.”

A business worth protecting

The current decline follows a particularly strong year for Atlantic City's meetings business.

Visit Atlantic City reported that the resort hosted 205 meetings, conventions and trade shows in 2025, generating 328,067 room nights, attracting 533,242 attendees and producing an estimated $362.3 million in economic impact.

That makes the current debate about more than the fate of one hotel.

The Atlantic City Convention Center contains 486,600 square feet of contiguous exhibit space and 45 meeting rooms encompassing another 109,100 square feet. It is owned and funded by the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority.

Formica argues the Convention Center and adjoining Sheraton need to be considered together.

“The convention hall has got to be revitalized to be a desirable facility,” he told Cronick, “and then the Sheraton, or whatever name it's going to be, will thrive.”

Sheraton uncertainty reaches convention attendees

The uncertainty surrounding the Sheraton is already showing up in information being provided to people attending future Atlantic City conventions.

The Triple Play REALTOR Convention & Trade Expo, scheduled for Dec. 7-10, identifies the Sheraton as one of its co-headquarters hotels and notes that it is connected to the Convention Center by a covered walkway.

Its accommodation page now carries a warning that the Sheraton “has indicated that it may cease operations effective Dec. 15, 2026.”

The convention says the hotel is expected to remain fully operational through Triple Play.

The Sheraton currently has 502 rooms. A redevelopment proposal would convert part of the property to age-restricted residential units while retaining 252 renovated hotel rooms.

Formica has been among the most vocal opponents of reducing the hotel's room inventory, arguing that doing so would make Atlantic City ineligible to compete for some larger conventions.

But this week he increasingly shifted the conversation toward the condition of the Convention Center itself.

Formica: Why not invest in the Convention Center?

On The Don Williams Show, Formica emphasized that CRDA has not approved $80 million to $100 million for the Sheraton redevelopment.

He said the property is pursuing assistance through a state program and CRDA's role in the process was more limited.

“The CRDA as a board, the chairman and executive director, including me, in no way approved $100 million for a single entity,” Formica said.

He then raised a different possibility: What if substantial public investment were directed into the Convention Center instead?

“Why give $80 million or $100 million in grant money or whatever, or incentives, which didn't come from the CRDA, to one entity,” Formica said, “when you could put that $80 million or $100 million into the convention center, refurbish it, and then everybody that you're trying to sell to goes, wow, you really fixed it up, we'll have a convention here.”

No such $80 million-to-$100 million Convention Center funding package has been approved.

But Formica says officials are now examining how a major renovation could be financed.

Could CRDA borrow for a renovation?

During Monday's Off The Press, Formica discussed the possibility that reduced CRDA debt obligations could create capacity to borrow money for improvements.

“I'm told we have a possibility of $100 million a year that was going out for payment that now could be bonded,” Formica said.

He immediately cautioned that the actual figure could be lower.

“And maybe it's not that much,” he continued, “but it's going to be enough to be part of the funding of renovating the convention center building itself.”

The precise amount of additional CRDA borrowing capacity has not been independently confirmed, and no financing package for a comprehensive Convention Center renovation has been formally approved.

Formica said people with experience financing projects around New Jersey were expected to meet with CRDA officials this week to discuss possibilities.

What about the Wi-Fi?

Both Formica and state Sen. Vince Polistina have also raised concerns about technology inside the Convention Center.

Formica said Tuesday the building doesn't have adequate cell service or Wi-Fi.

Official Convention Center information, however, says wired and wireless internet service is available throughout the building through Smart City Networks, with complimentary Wi-Fi in public spaces and meeting rooms.

The Convention Center also announced in 2023 that it had expanded and strengthened Wi-Fi coverage to all 45 meeting rooms, the atrium and other public areas.

Formica's comments therefore appear to concern the quality or reliability of the service, rather than an absence of Wi-Fi.

‘We better invest in our convention business’

Formica says the urgency is increased by growing competition facing Atlantic City's casino and tourism industries.

“The legacy of Atlantic City isn't casinos,” Formica said. “The legacy of Atlantic City is conventions.”

His argument is that Atlantic City needs both pieces of the convention campus to work: a large hotel immediately adjacent to the Convention Center and a facility capable of competing with convention destinations elsewhere.

“The hotel has got to be preserved at 502 rooms,” Formica said Monday. “If you don't have a first-class convention facility feeding it, it's going to come to the same demise.”

A day later, his message was more pointed.

“What we are doing is coming up with alternative ways right now to make this convention center healthy,” Formica said.

With Atlantic City's convention room nights running below last year's pace, the Sheraton's future unresolved and discussions beginning about how a Convention Center renovation might be financed, that effort may now be moving from a debate over what Atlantic City needs to a debate over how to pay for it.

Frank Formica discussed the Convention Center and Sheraton on Off The Press with Scott Cronick Monday and The Don Williams Show Tuesday on News Talk 1400 and 92.3 WOND. Off The Press airs Monday through Friday from 4 to 6 p.m.; The Don Williams Show airs Monday through Friday from 6 to 10 a.m.