Costs to reopen casinos are sky high – and are willingly paid.
BILOXI, Miss. – For casino operators and investors who envision converting the Mississippi Gulf Coast into a gambling-resort destination that will rival Las Vegas and Atlantic City, the effort won’t come cheap.
The costs of doing business here have gone from reasonable to sky high after last year’s hurricanes.
Meng Chai, project manager for the $500 million Bacaran Bay Casino Resort that Biloxi-based Torguson Gaming Group Inc. is building, said he was seeing cost increases across the board:
Steel, concrete and cement up 20 percent to 25 percent.
Copper 40 percent to 50 percent higher.
Glass and glazing up 20 percent to 25 percent. Same for drywall and metal-stud framing.
“A $100 million construction project before Katrina would now cost about $120 million,” said Chai, who works for Roy Anderson Corp., a construction company based in Gulfport, Miss.
Hurricane Katrina destroyed two casinos and severely damaged 10 others along the Gulf Coast. A year later, seven gambling halls have reopened, with an eighth set to reopen today – Hollywood Casino in Bay St. Louis, Miss.
In addition, a law signed by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour in October allowing casinos onshore for the first time is attracting billions of dollars of new capital investment. The Mississippi Gaming Commission has approved at least six new casinos, several of which are bigger than anything the Gulf Coast has seen. Read the rest of this entry »
Former Casino Magic opens under new owners today
David Moynan expects his business to benefit from today’s opening of Hollywood Casino in Bay St. Louis, the first Coast casino outside Harrison County to reopen since Hurricane Katrina made landfall a year ago.
“It will be a big help to all of us in downtown Bay St. Louis; plus it will provide additional hotel space,” said Moynan, owner of Maggie Mays gift shop and president of the Old Town Bay St. Louis Merchants Association.
“People who come to gamble sometimes bring with them people who don’t want to gamble but want to see what Old Town looks like.”
The 11 a.m. opening of Hollywood Casino, which was formerly known as Casino Magic, will put 950 employees back to work, and that’s excellent news, said Hal Walters, executive director of the Hancock County Port and Harbor Commission.
“A lot of them have have been waiting for the casino to open up,” he said. “They’ve got jobs they enjoyed and wanted to go back to. To me, it’s economic development in a big way.”
Hancock County also will benefit financially from Hollywood’s opening, Walters said.
Each casino’s gross gaming revenue is taxed at a rate of about 12 percent. Hancock County will receive about 4 percent of the casino’s gross gaming revenue; the other 8 percent will go to the state’s general fund.
More than 700 of the 950 employees worked at the resort before Katrina demolished its 200-room inn, destroyed its human resources and maintenance building and swept its entertainment barge from its moorings across the Bay of St. Louis to Diamondhead, five miles away.
The resort’s gaming barge stayed in place, but severe wind took the sides off. The resort’s hotel tower took on 15 feet of water, windows blew out, and the building was left a muddy mess.
Hollywood Casino is the only casino in Hancock County, but it won’t be for long, said Larry Gregory, executive director of the Mississippi Gaming Commission.
Silver Slipper Gambling Hall & Saloon, which is new to the market, plans to open Oct. 12 in Waveland. Read the rest of this entry »
Mississippi casino reopens for business on 1-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall
Beau Rivage Resort and Casino, once the crown jewel of Mississippi’s Gulf Coast gaming industry, reopened for business Tuesday on the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall.
Under sunny skies and a light gulf breeze, hundreds of the casino’s 3,800 employees _ 400 more than before Katrina _ lined up along the front entrance for a reopening ceremony that included remarks by Gov. Haley Barbour, U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., and others.
Katrina’s scars were still visible only blocks away. And across from the opening ceremony, a group of protesters decried the lack of progress being made in providing affordable housing for low- and middle-income families as well as other lingering problems.
The $800 million Beau Rivage, owned by MGM Mirage, sustained extensive damage to its lobby but fared better than most of the other gambling houses along the Mississippi Gulf coast.
The Beau Rivage is the seventh casino on the coast to reopen after the storm, and Mississippi’s decision to allow onshore casinos is attracting billions of dollars in investments. Three more coastal casinos are set to reopen by October, including one on Thursday in Bay St. Louis, Miss.
Dominick Gaeta, assistant director for food and beverage at Beau Rivage, said the resort’s reopening is a way of getting life back to normal.
“It’s like almost rebuilding my life,” said Gaeta, 41, of Chalmette, La.
Gaeta said he commuted about an hour to work for nearly eight years until his home was destroyed by Katrina. He has been living in a FEMA trailer in Marrero, La., but plans to get an apartment in Biloxi next month.
With some employees still living in FEMA trailers and a nearby customer base still suffering the economic effects of Katrina, the resort faces challenges in attracting tourists to the area.
Mary Cracchiolo, the casino’s director of public relations, said the resort is focusing on bringing back former customers and booking the hotel’s meeting spaces.
The casino was built in 1999 by developer Steve Wynn. In 2000, Wynn sold his casinos to MGM Grand, which later became MGM Mirage.
Overall, the state’s casinos earned $222.7 million statewide in July, down from $237.6 million in the same month last year. The state only allows casinos along the Gulf Coast and on the Mississippi River. The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians also runs two casinos in the east central part of the state, which are not regulated or taxed by the state.
Shares of MGM Mirage rose 6 cents to close at $35.34 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Source: AP
