The Norfolk on line casino resort undertaking from Boyd Gaming in partnership with Virginia’s Pamunkey Indian Tribe will break floor on the finish of the month.
Boyd Gaming and the Pamunkey Indian Tribe will break floor on their resort on line casino in Virginia’s Norfolk on Oct. 30, 2024. The groundbreaking comes practically 4 years after metropolis voters licensed the industrial on line casino. (Picture: Boyd Gaming)
Following the Norfolk Metropolis Council’s greenlighting of the greater than $500 million enterprise, the builders say they’ll break floor on the leisure vacation spot on Wednesday, October 30. The ceremonial first digging of filth shall be attended by Boyd Gaming CEO Keith Smith, Pamunkey Chief Robert Grey, and Norfolk Mayor Kenny Alexander.
The yet-to-be-named Norfolk resort will embrace a 200-room lodge and a on line casino ground with 1,500 slot machines, 50 reside seller desk video games, and a sportsbook. The blueprint’s newest revision options eight eating places and bars, 13K sq. ft of assembly and occasion area, a full-service spa, a health middle, and a 1,300-space parking storage.
The complicated shall be constructed on roughly six acres that the builders will buy from the town for $10 million.
Norfolk voters licensed a on line casino alongside the Elizabeth River adjoining to the town’s Harbor Park Minor League Baseball stadium throughout the November 2020 election. The native referendum fielded 65% help.
Short-term On line casino
Boyd Gaming and the Pamunkey Indian Tribe, the latter Norfolk’s longtime gaming companion, will first open a short lived on line casino with a couple of hundred slots and a handful of desk video games.
The builders should start on line casino playing on the positioning by November 2025. That’s as a result of Virginia’s 2020 industrial gaming invoice that certified choose cities to ask residents to authorize casinos mandates that gaming start the place native referendums area enough help inside 5 years of approval.
Boyd plans to assemble the short-term on line casino starting in February 2025 and open the ability by mid-October. Building on the everlasting resort is to start in mid-January 2025 and be prepared someday in 2027.
Norfolk’s long-delayed on line casino is lastly being expedited upon Boyd’s arrival. In September, Boyd turned the Pamunkey’s improvement companion after the Las Vegas-based regional gaming large purchased out billionaire Jon Yarbrough’s stake within the undertaking.
Earlier than the 2020 gaming invoice handed within the state legislature, Yarbrough was partnered with the Pamunkeys on a tribal on line casino roughly 60 miles north of Norfolk on the tribe’s sovereign land in King William County.
Norfolk opted to companion with the tribe for its industrial on line casino to thwart competitors the tribal on line casino might need created. Norfolk voters ratified their on line casino alternative in November 2020, with the Pamunkeys and Yarbrough, working collectively as Golden Eagle Consulting II, LLC, designated as the town’s most well-liked gaming developer.
The tribe and Yarbrough encountered quite a few challenges in getting their Norfolk on line casino scheme known as HeadWaters Resort & On line casino throughout the approval end line. Yarbrough, who amassed his riches by founding a number one producer of tribal gaming machines, in the end folded on the enterprise and offered his 80% stake in Golden Eagle to Boyd.
Title Potentialities
Upon Boyd’s arrival, the Norfolk gaming undertaking’s longtime id, HeadWaters, was sunk. Boyd reps say they’ll quickly announce what the forthcoming property shall be known as.
In contrast to its main competitor — Penn Leisure and its Hollywood on line casino model — Boyd doesn’t have a dominant model it makes use of for its regional properties. The one model Boyd makes use of in a number of states is Sam’s City in Nevada, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Sam’s City Virginia or Norfolk is unlikely, at finest.
It’s likelier that Boyd and the Pamunkeys will choose a reputation that resonates with the Hampton Roads area, and probably acknowledges Norfolk’s wealthy historical past, together with its huge waterways and Naval operations.
