The Cordish Firms on Tuesday gained market entry to a gaming state it’s desperately sought entry to for years.
The Cordish Firms web site for its Virginia on line casino resort now contains a congratulatory message to voters of Petersburg. Cordish and Bruce Smith Enterprise plan to construct a $600 million on line casino resort within the Virginia metropolis. (Picture: The Cordish Firms)
Voters in Petersburg, Va. closely supported a neighborhood referendum for a $1.4 billion mixed-use improvement that features a $600 million on line casino resort referred to as Reside! On line casino & Lodge Virginia. With 100% of the town’s precincts reporting, the Petersburg on line casino query handed with 82% backing.
Cordish, the Baltimore-based hospitality, leisure, and gaming conglomerate that operates Reside!-branded casinos in Maryland and Pennsylvania, is partnered with NFL Corridor of Famer Bruce Smith and his Virginia actual property agency Bruce Smith Enterprise on the Petersburg mission.
We’re deeply gratified by the group’s affirmation of this mission and really hopeful concerning the significant affect it is going to have on the town’s future,” stated Smith. “The on line casino is not going to solely create good-paying jobs for our residents however can even entice guests statewide and past, stimulating native companies and in flip producing an general ripple impact of financial progress.”
“This marks a monumental step ahead for the Petersburg group, because the approval paves the way in which for the event of a world-class on line casino and leisure vacation spot that guarantees to revitalize the native financial system, create jobs, and put money into much-needed group companies,” added an announcement from Cordish.
Venture Overview
Cordish and Bruce Smith will initially make investments $600 million to deliver a Las Vegas-style built-in resort to Petersburg, which is situated roughly 25 miles south of the Richmond capital. The mission features a 200-room lodge with eight eating places and bars, 35K sq. toes of conference amenities, a 3,000-seat live performance corridor, and a on line casino flooring with 1,600 slot machines, 46 dwell vendor desk video games, a 15-table poker site, and a sportsbook.
Over its first decade in operation, the builders mission the resort will ship the area an financial affect of $2.8 billion, generate greater than half of a billion {dollars} in state and native tax income, and create hundreds of well-paying jobs with common annual compensation and advantages of round $70K.
Whereas building of the everlasting resort takes place, Cordish and Bruce Smith say they’ll run a brief gaming facility that includes roughly 1,000 slots, 23 tables, a poker site, and a bar and informal restaurant.
Subsequent improvement phases after the on line casino resort is up and working are to incorporate a further lodge, residential housing, workplace house, and retail procuring.
How We Obtained Right here
Petersburg wasn’t imagined to have a on line casino. In 2020, Virginia lawmakers and then-Gov. Ralph Northam (D) handed a invoice designating 5 cities for casinos — Norfolk, Portsmouth, Bristol, Danville, and Richmond.
The laws mandated that casinos may solely come to these cities following native referendums expressing assist for a gaming enterprise. Through the 2020 election, all however Richmond held profitable ballots approving the casinos.
Richmond, which garnered essentially the most curiosity from on line casino operators, together with Cordish, held its gaming referendum in 2021 after metropolis officers picked City One, a Black-owned media conglomerate with zero expertise constructing or working a on line casino, in a partnership with gaming agency Peninsula Pacific Leisure (P2E).
Richmonders that yr voted 51%-49% towards the on line casino referred to as One On line casino + Resort. Richmond metropolis officers then fielded a second referendum, this time with Churchill Downs and City One after the Kentucky-based racing and gaming large acquired P2E, however Richmonders extra strongly rejected the gaming query with 58% opposed.
On the request of Petersburg, state lawmakers amended the 2020 gaming statute to permit the impartial metropolis in Dinwiddie County to mull a gaming mission.
Petersburg satisfies Cordish’s lengthy need to enter the Virginia gaming business. The corporate unsuccessfully sued Norfolk on grounds that it ought to have been its most popular gaming developer stemming from a 2013 partnership it held to redevelop the town’s Waterside District.
