Grand deal pleases Carter

By TOM WILEMON
tewilemon@sunherald.com 

Sales price for Gulfport Grand was $55 million

GULFPORT – Harrah’s Entertainment sold the Grand Casino Gulfport for $55 million.

Rick Carter and Terry Green, who operated the Copa Casino in the shadow of their bigger competitor for years, bought 40 acres of land and the buildings in March. Harrah’s, which had acquired the Grand Casinos last year in a corporate merger with Caesars Entertainment, opted to exit Gulfport and establish a bigger presence in Biloxi.

The Sun Herald obtained the sales figure through a deed.

Carter declined to discuss specifics about the sale, but did say, “We feel like we got a tremendous deal.”

The buildings for the casino resort in Gulfport cost several million dollars more than the purchase price, but they were heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The Grand, which already had a hotel and parking garage on the south side of U.S. 90, opened the new Oasis Hotel in 1999 at a cost of $75 million.

A casino is slated to open inside the Oasis Hotel on or before Sept. 4 under a new name.

“We just got back from talking to the marketing people,” Carter said. “We didn’t get any name we liked a whole lot. We’re back at the drawing board, but it’s going to be something Oasis. Oasis will be in the name.”

The first phase of the casino will have 900 to 1,000 slot machines and between 15 and 20 table games, he said.

“It will be in the footprint of the first floor of the Oasis,” Carter said. “We will also have a brand-new, 10,000-square-foot buffet. Everything will be state of the art.”

Harrah’s agreed to remediate damage in the Oasis Hotel and demolish its gambling barge on the south side of the highway. Carter and Green’s company, Gulfside Casino Partnership, owns 26 acres on the north side of the highway and leases 14 acres on the south side of the highway. Gulfside Casino Partnership assumed the lease of Grand Casino for the property on the south side owned by the State Port at Gulfport.

“We’re in the midst of demolishing and building back rooms,” Carter said. “Within the next week or so, we should have the permits to start phase one of construction.”

Source: Sun Herald 

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