Casino news source: Clarion Ledger - http://www.clarionledger.com/
Developers seek green to build botanical resort
- Ambitious project 1 of 3 approved by gaming board
By Nell Luter Floyd
nlfloyd@clarionledger.com
Barbara Gauntt/The Clarion-Ledger
Nick Lapardo (left), chairman of Myriad Botanical Resort, and Scott Wilson, representing MHA Gaming Co. LLC, discuss plans for their proposed complex Thursday with the Mississippi Gaming Commission. The commission approved the project.
Securing financing is under way for the ambitious Myriad Botanical Resort proposed for Tunica, the chairman of Myriad Entertainment & Resorts reported Thursday to the Mississippi Gaming Commission.
"We are in the fundraising stage right now," said Nick Lopardo. "I'm using my contacts and resources to convince folks this is a viable project."
Lopardo is former chairman and chief executive officer of Susquehanna Capital Management Group, an investment holding company based in North Reading, Mass. He retired in December 2001 as vice chairman of State Street Bank and Trust Co., where he headed the banks's investment management group.
The project initially gained attention for its promise of an 18-hole, climate-controlled, enclosed golf course that would be the centerpiece of a botanical garden, but a completely enclosed course is no longer in the plans, he said.
Lopardo said one or two holes of golf - or perhaps a practice facility - may be covered, but that's all. To cover all 18 holes of the course would have cost $215 million, he said.
Webster Franklin, president of the Tunica Convention & Visitors Bureau, said, given the scope of the project, he's not sure an indoor golf course is necessary.
After financing is secured, infrastructure for the project could be in place in nine to 10 months, Lopardo said.
The first phase would cost $1.6 billion to build and includes three casino hotels, a convention center, water park, spa and, as a focal point, the "Mississippi Eye," similar to the London Eye, he said. The commission plans for three casinos at the resort submitted by Sky Dancer LLC, High Plains Holdings LLC and MHA Gaming Co. LLC.
The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians owns Sky Dancer, and the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation owns MHA Gaming. Both companies are based in New Town, N.D. Minot, N.D.-based High Plains Holdings is co-owned by Ervin J. Lee of Minot and Duane J. Heinrich of Jamestown, N.D., and managed by Lee.
Plans show each building a 55,000-square-foot casino, a 500-room hotel and a parking structure for 1,000 vehicles.
Doc Brien, tribal chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, said the casino venture represents economic advancement for the tribe.
The commission also approved:
# The gaming site and development plans for the $600 million Bacaran Bay Casino Resort proposed for the Back Bay in Biloxi. Owners of the gaming site had site approval in their names and that of the developer but asked for gaming site approval in the developer's name alone, said attorney Len Blackwell of Gulfport.
Plans for Bacaran Bay call for a casino the size of the Beau Rivage, six movie theaters, a 40-lane bowling alley, 87,000 square feet of convention space, a hotel with 600 suites, a high-rise with 500 condominiums, spa, hotel for dogs and two wedding chapels.
"We think the wedding business is something we'd like to be in," said Marlin Torguson, CEO of Torguson Gaming Group.
Torguson, who founded Casino Magic, expects to return in March with financing so he can get approval to begin building.
Construction is expected to take 28 months with an opening in 2009, he said.
# The gaming site and development plans presented by Mississippi Bluffs Development LLC for a casino in Vicksburg. The $110 million to $150 million project includes a casino with 50,000 square feet of gaming space, a 232-room hotel, parking garage and a golf course.
Developer Paul Bunge of Castle Rock, Colo., said the next phase is securing financing. It was the second gaming site approval for Mississippi Bluffs Development because it changed the location of the project. |
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