Live! casino applicant Cordish touts its experience

In Philadelphia’s battle for the remaining casino license, one bidder has been relatively quiet.

Cordish Cos., which has teamed up with the owners of Parx Casino, has proposed the $425 million Live! Hotel & Casino for the stadium complex. It would have 2,000 slots and 125 table games, plus a 200-room hotel, spa and conference center (built in and around the existing Stadium Holiday Inn).

While the other four remaining casino proposals have been active in reaching out to media, doing tours and starting the sales effort, Cordish has largely kept quiet.

So, last week I drove down to visit Cordish President Joe Weinstein on his turf, at the Maryland Live! Casino in Hanover, Md., which is between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., and not far from Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

Maryland Live! and Parx have the potential to form a formidable tandem. In the Mid-Atlantic region, Maryland Live! is the largest grossing casino, while Parx is second.

Elsewhere, Cordish and its Power Plant Entertainment LLC developed Hard Rock-themed hotel-casinos in Hollywood, Fla., and Tampa, Fla. It is building the $500 million Indiana Live! Casino in Indianapolis.

Cordish knows how to bring in the crowds, as I saw last Friday on my visit to Maryland Live!

First off, it’s situated in a busy suburban shopping center, behind a Costco and adjacent to Burlington Coat Factory and Simon Property Group’s Arundel Mills Mall. The mall attracts 14 million people a year, while the casino brings in 9 million.

The casino has 4,300 slots and 174 live table games.

It also offers an unusual array of restaurant options. While it has the standard-issue buffet, the casino’s mall-side features the Prime Rib, Bobby’s Burger Palace and Cheesecake Factory. It is one of only two casinos in the country to have a Cheesecake Factory (along the the Venetian in Las Vegas).

Pennsylvania’s tax rate on slots is one of the highest in the nation, at 55 percent, but Maryland casinos pay 67 percent. Maryland Live! pays an average of $1 million a day in state taxes.

Weinstein is a quiet, no-nonesense executive. He has been at Baltimore-based Cordish for 30 years, is a partner but is not a family member.

While Cordish has been quiet about its plans for Philadelphia, Weinstein says the company would prefer to let its track record speak for itself.

“The rest is just talk,” he said.

On that note, he was critical of Steve Wynn’s effort to create advanced publicity, proposing a $900 million Wynn Resorts casino-and-hotel, then pulling out. Weinstein also said he wasn’t surprised Wynn Resorts decided the project wouldn’t be viable.

“We don’t believe a $700 million or $800 million or $900 million is sustainable in Philadelphia or really any market,” Weinstein said, basing it not just on the tax rate but also the number of casinos in the marketplace.

“But we feel there’s a very, very viable market in Philadelphia for a right-sized facility,” he said.

“We have a track record in gaming,” he said, adding that Cordish and Parx have the ability to self-finance the project and would be able to run the casinos themselves rather than through third-party operators.

Of the other proposals, Penn National Gaming would run its Hollywood casino itself. Joseph Procacci’s Casino Revolution hired Joseph J. Canfora, an experienced casino executive. The Provence casino, Bart Blatstein’s proposal, would be run by Isle of Capri, while Ken Goldenberg’s Market8 would be operated by Mohegan Sun.

“We don’t need outside financing, which is unique, and we would not be contingent on outside operators,” Weinstein said. “We have the experience. There’s a big difference between being an owner-operator and being dependent on an outside operator. We lay awake every night worrying how to make our business better.”

Source: Philadelphia Business Journal