A casino is coming to South Philadelphia.
Live! Hotel and Casino has won Philadelphia's second
casino license. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board made the announcement
Tuesday to a packed house at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
Live! was one of four applicants vying for the city's
second — and final — category 2 standalone license, which enables the casino
operator to have up to 5,000 slot machines and 250 table games.
The $425 million, 200,000-square-foot casino, will be located
at 900 Packer Ave. near the sports complex. Plans call for a 240-room hotel,
2,000 slots and 125 table games. It will also have a spa and conference center
built in and around the existing Holiday Inn.
The other three applicants were:
Tower Entertainment,
LLC (The Provence) at 400 North Broad Street
Market East Associates, LP (Market 8 Casino) at 8th and
Market Street
PHL Local Gaming, LLC (Casino Revolution) at 3333 South
Front Street
Revenue from slots at the 12 Pennsylvania casinos was
just over $191 million (up 1.1 percent year-over-year) in October 2014 while
table games brought in $63 million( up 4.1 percent.)
Live! is owned by Stadium Casino LLC — a joint venture
between Cordish Cos. and Greenwood Gaming and Entertainment Inc. (owner of Parx
Casino).
In the mid-Atlantic region, Maryland Live! is the largest
grossing casino ($50.2 million in revenues in October), while Parx is another
high achiever ($41.3 million in October). Elsewhere, Cordish and its Power
Plant Entertainment LLC developed Hard Rock-themed hotel-casinos in Hollywood,
Fla., and Tampa, Fla.
Penn National Gaming withdrew its bid for a Philadelphia
license earlier this year. It had plans to develop a $480 million Hollywood
Casino at 7th and Packer Avenue in South Philadelphia. The operator teamed up
with The Cordish Cos. to put
in a bid for a New York casino license.
Wynn Resorts unveiled a $900 million grand plan for a
casino on the Delaware River waterfront near Fishtown, but withdrew the application just days after New York voted in
favor of adding casinos.
Live! will be only the second casino within city limits,
along with SugarHouse Casino, which is currently undergoing a $164 million
expansion, including the city's first
poker tables.
The Fishtown casino has been very vocal in its opposition
of a second city casino, filing a motion earlier this month requesting that the
PGCB reopen the record with regard to the second casino license.
SugarHouse Casino is arguing that since PGCB closed the
record earlier in February, "significant economic events have occurred in
the northeastern U.S. gaming market that must be considered, including
continued deterioration of the market, severe saturation, four recent casino
closings in Atlantic City and nearby states issuing more gaming licenses."
Another casino in Philadelphia, however, would mean new
opportunities for workers who recently lost their jobs in any of Atlantic
City's casinos that closed earlier this year — Atlantic Club, Showboat, Revel
and Trump Plaza. A fifth, Trump Taj Mahal, will close in December.
Experts said the troubled city's former casino workers
would be flocking
to nearby casino havens like Philadelphia.
"They'll be lucky if 25 or 50 of them find jobs in
[Atlantic City]. Now, where are they going to go? They'll go to
Philadelphia," Saverio
R. Scheri III, president and chief executive of WhiteSand Gaming LLC, a
consulting firm with offices in Atlantic City, told the Philadelphia Business
Journal earlier.
Many have been saying the rise in gaming industries in
other markets such as Pennsylvania and New Jersey are the catalyst to the
decline of Atlantic City. Another Philadelphia casino will no doubt have an
effect on the troubled city.
Live! Hotel and Casino
Address: 900 Packer Ave.
Developer: Stadium Casino LLC
Principal: Greenwood Racing Inc., which owns the
Parx Casino in Bensalem; Sterling Investors Trust, Jonathan Cordish, Blake
Cordish, Reed Cordish, Joseph
Weinberg. (Cordish Cos. controls Maryland Live! in Baltimore).
What we know: The 200,000-square-foot casino, on
the site of the Stadium Holiday Inn, would include a 240-room hotel, 2,000
slots and 125 table games.
Cost: $425 million
Source: Philadelphia
Business Journal
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