Call it a whole new look for Trump Entertainment.

The newly opened Chairman Tower—the latest of three hotel towers to open in Atlantic City this year—is a contemporary spire that complements but does not replicate its neighbor, the Trump Taj Mahal.

The popular Taj, with an Indian motif complete with minarets, was designed in the 1980s, when elaborate theming was widespread in the casino industry; the Chairman Tower, like an arrow into the city skyline, points to the future. The Taj, which opened in 1990, is Trump writ large, with at least 10 exterior signs declaring the famous surname; the new tower, though named for Chairman of the Board Donald J. Trump, does not display his name on any part of the exterior.        

“That was the intention; the company didn’t want two
identical towers,” says Joe Emanuele, vice president of the Friedmutter Group, principal architects for the project. “They wanted a new iconic image, contemporary and clean in design, where the building makes the statement, not the signage.”

Outside, the new tower is elegant yet understated, clad in reflective silver glass. Inside, the look is contemporary without being cool, sleek without being severe. The tower’s gleaming metallic columns, spice-toned carpets, and opulent finishes (Macassar ebony from Africa, East Indian rosewood, rosa Verona red marble, Baltic brown granite and black granite) give it a blend of grandeur and comfort sure to bring many more visitors to Atlantic City.  

At the ribbon-cutting ceremony October 2, Governor Jon Corzine hailed Donald Trump’s “vision, will and tenacity” in bringing the new tower to the city, and called it a harbinger of good times to come.

“This is another building block in the destination resort that’s being put into place,” Corzine said, observing that the tower brings the number of additional rooms citywide this year to about 3,000—an important consideration as the city looks to boost its share of the convention business.

“Donald,” Corzine said, “you do it right, all the time.”

Sounding an upbeat note despite the economy, Trump Entertainment CEO Mark Juliano repeated the company’s oft-stated intention to continue to invest in Atlantic City, and expand inside the Taj Mahal’s mighty footprint.

“By no means are we finished expanding the property,” Juliano told the opening-day crowd. “We’ve built this gorgeous new tower while preserving valuable land to develop future projects. As we invest in ourselves, we invest in the future of the industry.”

It’s just the latest in a series of significant capital investments by Trump, including the renovation of the Taj Mahal casino floor (including the addition of a high-limit gaming salon), brand new dining (including famed Italian restaurant Il Mulino New York) plus expanded entertainment and shopping options. The Chairman Tower project alone created 200 new permanent jobs.

The $255 million tower features 782 guest rooms including 74 suites, eight of them at the penthouse level. Every guest room has floor-to-ceiling windows for stunning panoramic views of the Atlantic Ocean, the bay, and the city at large.

“Everyone loves the views from those rooms—there’s not a bad view from any direction,” says Emanuele. Even at the penthouse level, the diagonal aspect of the rooms relieves any sensation of vertigo. These sweeping views impress without intimidating.

Equally impressive are the luxurious appointments standard in each room and suite. The extra-spacious quarters have high ceilings, double bathroom sinks recessed in Brazilian granite countertops, 50-inch hi-def plasma TVs, iPod docking stations, and oversized walk-in showers (“You could have a party in those showers,” says interior designer Calvin Dix).

Dix and partner Katie Adams of Hirsch Bedner Associates, Santa Monica, California, took their cues from the colors of Asia: “the saffrons and golds, the rich spice colors and natural tones,” to give the rooms a special richness, Dix says.

“We wanted to do a contemporized backdrop in a very modern way without being too sleek,” he says. “There’s nothing glossy or sharp-edged—it’s all clean, subtle lines.”

The designers did encounter one problem, in that some of the rooms “are 60 percent window,” Dix says. “We scheduled art in all the rooms, but sometimes didn’t have the wall space. It’s a nice problem to have.”

The designing duo custom-crafted all the furniture, down to the guest room doors. Each bathroom door, for instance, has a translucent saffron cell at the bottom that glows when the light is on, so guests can always tell when the room is occupied.

“I’ve been in this business 28 years, and this is the first time I’ve ever been asked to design a custom door—that’s practically unheard of,” Dix says. “Most owners will give you free rein, then price the project and dial it back.

“With the Chairman Tower, we got free rein, they weighed it, and they didn’t dial back 50 to 60 percent like most owners, to make it fit in their budget. This is a great achievement, and the project team at Trump Entertainment was fabulous to work with. I would walk on water for those guys.”

Designed with leisure and business travelers in mind, the new tower also has three meeting rooms with approximately 1,200 square feet of space.

Completing a trinity of elegant towers to open here this year, the Chairman Tower (like Harrah’s Waterfront Tower and the Water Club at Borgata) ushers in a new age of luxury in the Atlantic City casino industry, and positions this city by the sea for a vigorous, prosperous future.

The Chairman Tower used:

• 20 miles of building wire and communications cable, enough to go from Trump Taj Mahal to Trump Tower in New York and back (with 69 miles to spare)
• 16 miles of pipe, enough to go from here to the Hamilton Mall 
• Enough sheet rock to cover the Atlantic City Boardwalk twice
• Enough screws that, stood end-to-end, they would reach space
• 134 miles of aluminum extrusions, the distance between New York City and Atlantic City
• More than 25,100 electrical junction boxes, 9,830 electrical outlets and 5,900 electrical switches
•240 security cameras
• More than half a million man-hours of work
• 3,420 tons of rebar
• Approximately 6,500 cubic yards of concrete

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