Revel, power company agree to keep lights on for now

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — The new owner of Atlantic City's former Revel casino and a power company with which he has been battling have agreed to keep the lights on at the building, at least for now.

A federal judge on Friday approved a deal reached by Glenn Straub's Polo North Country Club and ACR Energy Partners to keep power flowing to the building.

The pact specifies that Straub will pay for power that ACR provides until one of four things happens: the parties reach a long-term energy contract; a state order requiring ACR to provide service is canceled or amended; a judge lets ACR stop providing service; or Straub finds a new energy provider.

Uncertainty over utility service has prevented Straub from reopening Revel for the start of summer, as he had hoped. Both parties have been wrangling over the cost of service at Revel, and whether Straub should have to pay part of the debt from construction of its power plant.

Straub bought Revel, which cost $2.4 billion to build, for $82 million out of bankruptcy court in April. Two days later, ACR cut service to the building in the absence of a contract to provide service there.

That prompted Atlantic City officials to begin fining Straub for each day that fire protection systems were not energized, and New Jersey's Department of Community Affairs ordered that ACR keep providing electricity to the building in order to prevent a catastrophic fire or a plane crashing into the top of the 47-story building if a warning light on its roof was unlit.

Under the agreement, Straub will keep a $250,000 deposit account replenished and have the right to access ACR property to read the electric meter. ACR will be allowed to get inside Revel to access equipment it owns.

If Straub finds another energy supplier, he has to give ACR at least two weeks' advance notice.

The agreement also requires Straub to pay an operations and maintenance fee equal to 15 percent of the cost of energy he uses.

ACR has to provide up to two megawatts of electricity at any time and keep a backup generator on standby.

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