Biloxi
Says No to Golden Nugget
Plans by Houston-based Landry's
Restaurants to bring a Golden Nugget-brand casino
to hurricane-ravaged Biloxi, Miss., were rejected
this week by the city's elected leaders.
Landry's
Restaurant offered to lease the land for a Golden
Nugget Casino, but the Biloxi City Council rejected
its offer this week after the two sides could
not agree on a price.
The
City Council is now looking at Biloxi-based
Isle of Capri to develop the site on 18 acres
north of Highway 90 in the Point Cadet area
on Biloxi's eastern edge. The land is near the
destroyed Highway 90 bridge that connects Biloxi
with Ocean Springs.
The
company, which has first rights to develop the
site, has discussed putting a new 2,500-room
hotel casino on the north side of U.S. 90 that
would be more than three times the size of the
company's existing Biloxi resort.
Landry's,
which bought the Golden Nugget casinos in downtown
and Laughlin for $345 million, had proposed
spending $400 million to build the Biloxi Boardwalk,
which would have included a 60,000- square-foot
Golden Nugget casino, a 600-room hotel and a
marina for 100 boats.
Landry's
said it would build a 150-foot-tall Ferris wheel,
thrill rides, an aquarium and restaurants, telling
city leaders the proposed project would be similar
to the company's amusement attractions in Houston
and Galveston, Texas.
The
City Council unanimously rejected Landry's,
however, because they didn't think the lease
offered enough.
Landry's
had offered to pay the city minimum base rent
of $2.5 million and 4 percent of annual gross
revenue above $62.5 million. Council members
said the offer amounted to an overall cap of
approximately $3.3 million.
"It
was a great project and I would have loved to
have seen it happen," Councilman George
Lawrence told the Biloxi Sun-Herald. "Anybody
who looked at the project loved it. You still
have to do the best things for the citizens.
I don't think the offer was enough."
Jeff
Cantwell, senior vice president of development
for Landry's, said the company remains interested
in the Biloxi site.
The
Golden Nugget would have been the first new
casino to be announced since Hurricane Katrina
destroyed 13 Mississippi Gulf Coast casinos,
eliminating 17,000 jobs and wiping annual gaming
revenues of $1.2 billion off the books.
Three
casinos will reopen in Biloxi this month; the
Imperial Palace on Thursday, the Isle of Capri
on Dec. 26 and the Palace Casino on Dec. 30.
Separately,
an agreement between operators of the destroyed
Copa Casino and the State Port at Gulfport that
would allow the casino to rebuild closer to
U.S. 90 has been put on hold by the state.
The
Mississippi Development Authority, which has
veto authority over any project on the state-owned
land, has not signed off on the agreement.
The
privately owned Copa, one of two casinos located
in Gulfport, was destroyed by the hurricane
and subsequently demolished.
|
