Casino news source: The Shreveport Times - http://www.shreveporttimes.com/
Tunica-Biloxis spending $100 million to expand casino’s resort
January 30, 2007
The Associated Press
MARKSVILLE — The $100 million expansion at the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe’s casino won’t increase its gambling space, but will double its size.
The 500,000-square-foot expansion will focus on the resort side of the Paragon Casino Resort, including an eight-story hotel with an artificial bayou — but real alligators and catfish — in its lobby; three movie theaters, a full spa and fitness rooms and a new 550-seat buffet.
“Basically, we asked our customers what they wanted to see in a resort, and we took their suggestions and are giving them what they want,” Assistant General Manager Chris Barbry said.
The casino has 2,100 slot machines, 46 gaming tables and a poker room in 74,120 square feet of gambling space.
Barbry said 40-foot tall artificial cypress trees will tower above a Creole “village” in the atrium. The 205 hotel rooms overlooking the atrium will feature balconies and arched passageways aimed at a French Quarter feel.
Audio of croaking bullfrogs will be piped in, and fog machines will help contribute to the atmosphere, he said.
The additions also could help draw bigger names to Marksville, Barbry said. “We are going to have a bigger stage that will allow us to go after some bigger entertainment that have different stage requirements that we don’t meet now,” he said. The theater will have 2,500 seats, rather than the current 1,500.
Country music star Trace Adkins will open it on March 31, with tickets costing $50. The new hotel is expected to open in the fall.
Looking from the top floor through a window of a hotel room under construction in the new tower, Barbry said he can see the spot on the Tunica-Biloxi Reservation where he grew up in what he described as a “shack.”
Barbry, who traces his lineage as American Indian, French Creole and Irish, said he had no indoor plumbing or running water in the shack, where his father died of a heart attack.
“I wish my daddy could have seen this. He would be amazed — just amazed,” he said. |
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