Beau Rivage is back

Tommorrow is the Grand Opening of the Beau Rivage Resort Hotel and Casino in Biloxi Mississippi!

The 32-story Beau Rivage will include 1,740 newly remodeled rooms, a redesigned casino with 2,100 slots, 93 table games and a high-stakes poker room, seven restaurants, four lounges, six shops, a spa and salon, in addition to meeting and convention space, Cracchiolo said. Additional restaurants, shops and a theater are scheduled to open later this year.

Parent company, MGM-Mirage, put $800 million into the facility when it opened in 1999, and it put more than $500 million into the renovation.

The gaming industry will eye Beau Rivage’s return for its impact on tourism and the revenue, said Larry Gregory, executive director of the Mississippi Gaming Commission.

“When Beau Rivage opened in 1999, there was about a 30 percent increase in gross gaming revenues,” he said. “I think everyone is expecting to see an increase and will be
curious about what that will be. I expect a significant increase.”
Gross gaming revenue for July amounted to $74.4 million for the Coast, which at that time had five casinos open, and almost $29.6 million in tax revenue. That’s 74 percent of the $101.7 million in gross gaming revenues for July 2005, when there were 12 casinos open along the Coast.

Beau Rivage will be the seventh casino to reopen on the Coast since Katrina shut down all 12 casinos there and Hard Rock, which was days from its scheduled opening.

IP, New Palace, Isle of Capri, Treasure Bay, Boomtown and Grand Casino Biloxi reopened earlier this year. Hollywood Casino, formerly known as Casino Magic Bay St. Louis, is set to reopen at11 a.m. Thursday, and Island View Casino is scheduled to reopen at the site of Grand Casino Gulfport on Sept. 18.

When Island View opens, there will have been a $1.4 billion investment in casinos on the Coast, Gregory said. The gaming industry employed 15,000 before Katrina, and with the opening of Island View that number should be 13,000, he said.

For casino employees on the Gulf Coast, chances are good their pay is 30 to 40 percent better than it was before Katrina. The increase in wages and salaries is because there are more jobs to fill than people to fill them, Gregory said.

“It’s a very competitive business hiring and retaining employees,” he said, noting that casino executives have said positions for hotel housekeepers and cooks have been the most difficult to fill.

Connie Rockco of Biloxi, president of the Harrison County Board of Supervisors, said she expects the gaming industry on the Coast to continue to grow after Beau Rivage opens.

“Beau Rivage is wonderful, but I think there are gong to be bigger and better things down the road,” she said. “I understand Harrah’s Entertainment is planning to put $1 billion in the ground in Biloxi in The Grand.”

John Jagunich, president and general manager of Hollywood Casino, said he expects Beau Rivage to enrich the Gulf Coast gaming experience.

“It’s going to do nothing but make things better,” he said.

Source: Clarion Ledger
Photo Source: Sun Herald

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