Around the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, there's talk of rebirth.

Hard Rock is revamping the old Trump Taj Mahal into a new casino, expected to open this summer. Stockton University is building a residential campus. All eight open casinos are profitable after a few years in the red.

Add to that a new, year-round attraction that offers a view of it all.

The Wheel at Steel Pier, a $14 million completed project, opened for the spring Saturday with a few hundred visitors lining up to get onto the pier and board the rides.

The ride, which at its highest point is 227 feet from its base and 300 feet above sea level, offers views of the city, the coast and the Atlantic Ocean on a 15-minute ride that stops at the top for visitors to take it all in.

For some, it might have been a fun experience and not much else. For others, it represented the culmination of three years of hard work and another new addition to a city many people thought was down for the count.

"This is a statement," said Anthony Catanoso, Steel Pier's owner and president, gesturing to the wheel behind him. "It says, 'You know what, Atlantic City is coming back. We can build beautiful, non-gaming attractions that are first-class, and people are going to come and ride them."

His family is in its 28th season running its "small mom-and-pop park" after leasing it from Donald Trump for 20 years and buying it seven years ago.

The Wheel was open for a few days around Christmas and will operate on weekends this spring before opening full-time later in the season. Weekday rides will be available April 2 through 6 beginning at 1 p.m.

On a breezy Saturday with wind chills in the 30s, plenty of piergoers were buying tickets priced at $15 for adults and $12 for kids. The Wheel's 40 cabins are climate-controlled, with heaters on the bottom and air conditioners on the top offering a reprieve from either temperature extreme.

Linda Kemmerer and her daughter, Gillian, had been waiting for months to ride the wheel and talked about it whenever Gillian visited from New York City. They could see the lights at night from Linda's Atlantic City condo and enjoyed the view once they boarded the wheel.

Like Catanoso, they felt optimistic about the direction in which the city was headed.

"I would not have moved here from Mercer County if I didn't think there was hope for Atlantic City, and I really do think there is," Linda Kemmerer said. "You can just see it all around."

We're here at Atlantic City's Steel Pier, where the observation wheel is open for the holiday weekend. Check out the view from 227 feet up! Posted by NJ.com on Saturday, March 31, 2018

Tony Rossi, Steel Pier's director of operations, made a swift correction when a reporter came by and asked if he was the ride's operator.

"No, no," he said. "I built this."

Packed in 45 shipping containers, the parts came from Italy to the city's port and then to the pier via trucks, Rossi said. It took three years to build on the steel-reinforced concrete base, using galvanized metals throughout the wheel to ensure it would stand up to storms.

"It has to hold up to 130 mile-per-hour winds that we saw in Hurricane Sandy," Rossi said.

The Wheel weights 485,000 pounds and will light up at night to illuminate Atlantic City's boardwalk.

Steel Pier decided to face the ride down the coastline for optimum visibility. Rossi said his friends who live 11 miles away in Ocean City can see the wheel, which is the third-largest on the East Coast.

"We changed the face of the coastline for the entire Jersey Shore -- certainly, for Atlantic City," Catanoso said. "We're the beacon. We want to portray ourselves as the hub of the resurgence."

Plenty of people will wait until the summer to come see the wheel for the first time, but that's when Linda Kemmerer is sure she'll be back again.

"In a couple of months or so when it gets warmer, we can come up at night and see everything lit up," she said. "It'll be beautiful."

Joe Brandt can be reached at jbrandt@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JBrandt_NJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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