Casino news source: The Sun Herald - http://www.sunherald.com
Ameristar prepares for move onto pilings
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
VICKSBURG - In a process that will take four months, the owners of the Ameristar Casino in Vicksburg intend to raise the gambling boat 2 feet and rest it on a concrete foundation held together by a network 60-foot reinforced steel beams.
A new state law allows floating casinos to move onto pilings.
Gael Waldron, corporate director of construction for Ameristar Casinos Inc., said Wednesday that plans were to raise the 16 million-pound barge so workers could replace the basin liner of the coffer in which the casino has floated since opening in 1994.
"We about had a contract signed, but then Katrina hit. We just kind of switched gears," Waldron said.
The Mississippi Legislature in July 2005 approved a law that allows dockside gambling barges to move to permanent structures.
Ameristar general manager Ray Neilsen said the casino received approval for the work from the Mississippi Gaming Commission this year.
"We're OK to put it there," he said. "There will still be water under the facility."
The piling law, as it is known, is separate and distinct from another law passed by lawmakers in October 2005 that approved casinos along the Mississippi Gulf Coast to move up to 800 feet inland.
The purpose is the same _ to protect gambling barges along the Mississippi River from Natchez to Tunica County from damage during severe storms.
The raising of the Ameristar is part of what is now a $150 million expansion, said Neilsen. |
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