Biloxi casino resort OK’d
Broadwater plans to be reviewed by committee
By MICHAEL NEWSOM mmnewsom@sunherald.com
BILOXI - The $1 billion Broadwater Resort proposal unanimously passed the City Council on Tuesday, with stipulations that finalized plans would have to be approved by a review committee.
The Broadwater plans call for two casinos: one at the site of the Broadwater Hotel and another south of U.S. 90. The resort would be built with some 3,375 condos and 1,900 hotel-room units on site and would also have an 18-hole golf course, with possible condominiums to be built on the site of the former Broadwater Sun Golf Course. The 180-acre golf course would include retail shops along the edges.
Mark Calvert, who made the presentation for developers, said the project could be finished by December 2008.
“It is bringing the bar up,” Calvert said. “It is no doubt that Beau Rivage brought the bar up. This will bring it up again.”
The project is conceptual and developers don’t have renderings of what the buildings will actually look like, so the finalized plans have to be approved by the city’s Design Review Committee. Developers and city officials agreed that the sheer size of the project makes the conceptual method the easiest for them.
Developers of the 261-acre condo, hotel and casino resort got a height variance - which will allow one structure to be built at 403 feet, as opposed to the 220 feet specified in the city’s Land Development Ordinance - among other variances and a zoning change.
Broadwater Development LLP is a partnership formed by Coast businessmen W.C. “Cotton” Fore and Roy Anderson III, who own the land.
The plans also included one possible exit from the resort area at Jim Money Road onto Pass Road, near the post office, which is a three-way stoplight. Some councilmen and residents were concerned the project might dump too much traffic onto Pass Road.
The Broadwater was a last-minute addition to last week’s agenda, which qualified it for vote this week. Ward 6 Councilman Ed Gemmill said the plans were pushed through and criticized the council for allowing FEMA flood elevations to lie tabled since Feb. 28.
Ward 3 Councilman Charles T. Harrison Jr. used the meeting as a platform to answer recent charges lobbed at the city. A group of planners who worked with the Governor’s Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal resigned last week, saying the city was letting developers shape the future of the Biloxi.
“I don’t know how it got started that we were giving Biloxi away,” Harrison said. “I was born here. I live here and I wouldn’t vote for that.”