Gaming commission to meet on tourism
By TOM WILEMON
Sun Herald
Mayors and casino executives will outline their ideas for rebuilding the Coast’s tourism industry to the Mississippi Gaming Commission when it meets Thursday in Biloxi at the Imperial Palace.
“It’s an opportunity for them to discuss the issues that are happening on the Coast in their respective cities,” said Larry Gregory, the commission’s executive director. “The floor is open to them. We’re giving about five minutes to each person. Then during the meeting we’re going to have each casino licensee do as good a job as they can to unveil what they expect to build in the next year.”
The host property, the Imperial Palace, weathered Hurricane Katrina better than its competitors and will reopen around Christmas. But the Isle of Capri won’t be far behind. The Isle, which is the only Coast property with a rebuilding project on the agenda for Thursday’s meeting, will ask for permission to relocate its casino into its new hotel, Gregory said. Its gambling barge was destroyed in the hurricane, along with those of 10 other casinos.
“I think we’re going to see The Palace Casino, most likely on the December agenda, asking to do the same thing as the Isle of Capri,” Gregory said.
The chairman of a competing casino company expects business to be good for the privately owned Imperial Palace, according to statements he made last week in an earnings conference call.
“I’ll bet they do extremely well,” said Dan Lee, the chairman of Pinnacle Entertainment, which owns Casino Magic Biloxi. “But we can’t be the first to open, we can’t even be a second, third or fourth open. We’re so destroyed that it will take us quite some time to rebuild and we will end up being one of the later ones to reopen.”
Lee expects to make a decision six months out, and if Pinnacle does rebuild in Biloxi it will change the name of the casino to avoid confusion.
The Coast has two Casino Magics, each owned by a different company. Penn National Gaming, which owns Casino Magic Bay St. Louis and Boomtown, has committed to rebuild.
Len DeAngelo, Penn National’s executive vice president of operations, will appear before the commission Thursday to “express our strong desire to rebuild both properties,” the company said in a press release on Tuesday. Penn National said it may put a casino in its 10,000-square-foot hotel ballroom at the Bay St. Louis property. In Biloxi, the company said it planned to reconstruct the Boomtown barge.
“We’ve gotten word pretty much from throughout the industry that everybody is going to rebuild,” Gregory said. “There was some speculation about Pinnacle. They have not called me to let me know whether are not they are going to rebuild. However, I think if anybody decides to leave, those sites are going to be so valuable they’re going to be swept up by others who want to come into the market.”
November 16th, 2005 at 12:48 pm
This is the first article that talked about the Palace opening in December, I will try to dig some more information about this up.