I was born in Atlantic City. The Steel Pier is where my own story with this city actually begins, not the radio career, before that.
So when I saw this listing, it hit different than most real estate news does.
What’s actually up for sale
Steel Pier, the five-acre oceanfront landmark across from Hard Rock Hotel + Casino, has been listed for $85 million. The listing includes a built-in helipad, riparian rights, and prior approvals for a condo-hotel entertainment complex.
The pier opened in 1898 as a theater, later expanding into rides, exhibits, and attractions that earned it the nickname “Showplace of the Nation.” At its peak, it stretched nearly 2,300 feet into the ocean. Today it measures 150 feet wide and 965 feet long, with a perpetual riparian grant allowing expansion up to 2,850 feet if a future owner wanted it.
The front building, including a sky bridge and roof, totals roughly 40,000 square feet. Zoning currently supports hotel, entertainment, and commercial redevelopment, alongside its existing life as a running amusement park.
A quick history most people don’t know
Trump Entertainment Resorts owned the pier in the late 1980s, part of the same ownership umbrella as the adjacent Trump Taj Mahal. It went to auction in 2011, but before that sale could happen, the Catanoso family, who’d operated rides for years already, bought it outright for $4.25 million.
The Catanosos poured real money into the place after that. A new office complex. A refurbished front building and sky bridge. Full interior renovations, including a commercial kitchen. Upgraded electrical, plumbing, fencing, and lighting.
The structure itself is anchored 90 feet into bedrock, which is why it stayed standing through Superstorm Sandy while so much up and down the Jersey shore didn’t. A 25% expansion of the current footprint is permitted, and that sky bridge carries an easement straight into Hard Rock’s convention floor. The pier’s also shown up on screen in “The Long Kiss Goodnight,” “The Bounty Hunter,” “Five Dollars a Day,” and TLC’s “Cake Boss.”
SEE ALSO: The Steel Pier has stood since 1898 — and it still means everything
photos by EJ
Why this one actually gets me
I wrote back in May about my parents listening to WFPG, broadcasting straight off the Steel Pier with real ocean sound effects mixed into the programming. My first concert ever was Chubby Checker, right there, sometime in the early ’70s. I said then that doing a live broadcast from that exact pier, the way Dennis and Judi used to every summer, would be a full circle moment worth chasing.
photos by EJ
It happened faster than I expected. In June, Kyle and I actually did it, set up right under our own tent on the pier itself. Anthony Catanoso, the pier’s president, and Sharon Franz, their director of marketing, made us feel completely at home that day. Dennis Malloy even stopped by. It’s one of my favorite days of the whole summer.
Now the family that built all of that is selling.
The bigger picture
This listing lands in the middle of real momentum for Atlantic City. The casino industry generated roughly $1.1 billion in taxes and fees in 2025, up nearly 25% from the year before. The Casino Reinvestment Development Authority approved close to $1.8 million in community grants in just the first half of this year. New residential projects, Caspian Point, K. Hovnanian’s South Inlet townhomes, Colosseo’s project on the old Atlantic Club site, the Orange Loop residences, are reshaping the blocks around the boardwalk.
Whatever happens to Steel Pier next, I hope whoever ends up with it understands what that pier actually means to this city, and to people like me who trace their whole story back to it.
EJ takes a walk in Atlantic City
On Friday June 26, 2026 me and Kyle Forcini were joined by Dennis Malloy and hosted “The Judi & EJ Show” live from the Atlantic City Boardwalk at the legendary Steel Pier. Prior to the show I took a walk around town and snapped some photos!
Gallery Credit: Eric “EJ” Johnson
