Courtesy of: http://www.globegazette.com
By Todd Dorman
Dan Kehl’s family rang the starting bell on Iowa’s riverboat gambling industry when his parents transformed a historic Mississippi excursion boat into the state’s first licensed floating casino back in the early 1990s.
Now Kehl, the CEO of Riverside Casino and Golf Course, is following in their footsteps. But the sprawling complex he christened Thursday night south of Iowa City is not his parents’ paddlewheeler.
Only in the eyes of Iowa law is Riverside a riverboat casino. Obeying the letter of that law meant spending $1 million on a series of 23 massive water bladders hidden under the casino’s floor. Kehl compares them to “50,000 waterbed mattresses.”
When his parents got into the business, riverboat casinos were required to take passengers on a leisurely cruise. The law and the times have changed.
“Customers don’t want that. They want the convenience of coming and going,” Kehl said.
The only riverboats around here are in paintings and posters decorating the walls in one of the resort’s four restaurants. Two eateries — Ruthie’s and Robert’s — are named for his parents.
But there is water, lots of it.
Leaping fountains and man-made ponds decorate a massive parking lot with room for thousands of vehicles. More fountains inside ring the casino floor and a wall of cascading water hides the VIP room from the prying eyes of other patrons.
At the epicenter of the casino is a large fountain that danced, gurgled, gushed and changed colors Thursday to the tune of AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long.”
“It’s quite a feat of engineering,” Kehl said.
Kehl said investors wanted to create something very different when they sank $140 million into the resort, which includes a full-service spa and a 201-room hotel and events center. An 18-hole championship golf course should be ready in June.
“This is Iowa’s first destination resort,” Kehl said as workers hustled to finish work ahead of Thursday’s opening ceremonies —exactly two years to the day after Washington County voters approved a casino gambling referendum.
“It’s been my experience over the years that people expect more for their entertainment dollar and have higher expectations,” Kehl said. “We’re a resort that happens to have gaming.”
Sixty miles to the east in the Quad Cities, home to a pair of Iowa riverboat casinos and another on the Illinois side, some are wondering what impact Riverside will have on the regional gambling market.
A study released in April 2005 predicted that Riverside would siphon off about 10 percent of the Quad Cities’ $206 million annual gambling market.
“Do we think that’s accurate? It could be,” said Nancy Donovan, vice president of Isle of Capri’s Iowa operations. The company owns riverboats docked in Bettendorf and Davenport and will open a floating casino in Waterloo next spring.
“We’re continuing to grow our business the best way we know how and that’s by bringing in people from the outer markets,” Donovan said.
Riverside’s closest competitors aren’t sitting still. Isle of Capri is in the midst of building an expanded, 12-story hotel complex at its Bettendorf facility that will be hooked to a new city events center.
In Davenport the company is pledging to invest more than $30 million in riverfront development, including a new hotel adjacent to the casino. And that’s just the latest in a string of projects that have rejuvenated the city’s downtown and riverfront.
“We probably have as many amenities in downtown Davenport as any of the casinos have in close proximity,” said Mary Ellen Chamberlin, who leads the local Riverboat Development Authority. The group hands out casino dollars to non-profit organizations. “I think whenever you put more casinos in close proximity you wonder what it’s going to do to the market.”
State gambling regulators who awarded casino licenses last year to Riverside, Worth County, Waterloo and Emmetsburg, believe the market is large enough to keep the state’s riverboats afloat.
“In the beginning everybody wants to go to a new casino. You just have to see how it pans out after a while,” said Diane Hamilton of Storm Lake, a member of the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission.
Kehl expects the Riverside resort to draw some customers from other nearby gambling markets. The casino’s proximity to Iowa City could attract thousands of Hawkeye football fans who will ride shuttle buses to and from Kinnick Stadium.
The first shuttles will run on Sept. 16 when Iowa takes on archrival Iowa State. That same evening Tonight Show host Jay Leno performs at the resort’s events center.
But Kehl said he’s putting more emphasis on selling the resort to potential patrons in places such as Chicago, Kansas City, Minneapolis and beyond.
Even as the casino opens Kehl and other investors are looking toward expansion.
Riverside is competing with Pella to host the $155 million Iowa Earth Park project, which could be built across the road from the casino resort. The casino has pledged nearly $20 million in incentives over the next 10 years to land the park.
“If you have that thing, I think this whole area just blows up with growth,” Kehl said. |
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