Plans for Cincinnati Casino
Casino developer Dan Gilbert said he hopes to break ground by the middle of next year on a $500 million gaming facility in Cincinnati and be open for business within 30 months.
At a press conference this week, Gilbert outlined plans for assembling a design and urban-planning team within 120 days and recruiting a casino management company within 90 days. He reaffirmed campaign commitments to hire 90 percent of all employees from the Cincinnati region and pay prevailing wage rates during construction of the site, one of four that got the green light when 53 percent of voters approved the controversial Issue 3.
“We’re absolutely going to deliver everything that we said,” Gilbert told a crowd of reporters, politicians, business and union leaders assembled at the site. “We’re going to work with every business group, every citizen group, every labor group.”
The work Gilbert’s Rock Ventures LLC is undertaking for casinos in Cincinnati and Cleveland comes as Wyomissing, Pa.-based Penn National Gaming Inc. (NASDAQ:PENN) begins work on casinos in Toledo and Columbus. Penn officials said last week that at least $300 million will be invested in the Columbus casino, the only among the four whose prospective host county voted Issue 3 down. A construction start for Penn’s two casinos is eyed for next year with hopes for a late 2012 opening. The Columbus site is just west of the Arena District.
Rock Ventures President Matt Cullen said the Cincinnati casino project will try to become part of the urban landscape, echoing comments from Penn officials about Columbus last week.
“We don’t want this to be an enclave that you pull in, you valet your car,” Cullen said. “You see your car again in four hours and you get in the car and you leave. We want it to be very open and accessible to everybody so it can be a catalyst for all of the surrounding activities, not to be an island unto itself.”
Cullen indicated developers have not yet exercised an option to acquire the Broadway Commons site from land investor Robert Chavez, who has owned the property since the early 1980s. In Columbus, Penn has an option to buy the 18-acre former Jaeger Machine Co. property on West Nationwide Boulevard from Plaza Properties Inc.
Cullen and Gilbert said they’ll spend the next few months recruiting architects, planners and other advisers to help them plan the Cincinnati casino. Basketball legend Oscar Robertson and attorney George Vincent already have been named to an advisory panel that might be offered an ownership stake in the casino.
Penn officials said last week that their advisory board for the Columbus project will include Lewis Smoot Sr., CEO of Smoot Construction, and Dwight Smith, CEO of Sophisticated Systems Inc., an information technology company. More area members are expected to be added soon.
Source: Columbus Business First
