In Pennsylvania, the joint venture behind the proposed Live! Hotel and Casino has reportedly announced that it intends to start construction on the Philadelphia facility next year before opening the new $600 million property in 2020.
According to a report fro 7BALL m The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper, the revelation from Stadium Casino LLP came after lawyers for the nearby SugarHouse Casino dropped a long-running legal action against the coming facility on Thursday. This purportedly followed Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf’s repeal early last week of a 2004 restriction that had prohibited individual firms from having a stake in more than one casino in the state.
David Cordish, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for The Cordish Companies, reportedly told the newspaper that his firm was now ‘thrilled to be teed up to build’ the Live! Hotel and Casino, which he declared would be ‘one of the premier locations in the United States for a truly upscale casino with world-class amenities’.
The Cordish Companies reportedly holds a 50% stake in Stadium Casino LLP while also running two casinos in Florida alongside the Maryland Live! Casino outside of its home city of Baltimore. The newspaper explained that the other partner in the joint venture, the Greenwood Racing concern of international businessman Watche ‘Bob’ Manoukian, won the right to bring the Live! Hotel and Casino to an area of south Philadelphia in 2014 but immediately faced opposition from losing bidder Market East Associates as well as SugarHouse Casino.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Wolf’s actions last Monday effectively rendered these objections ‘moot’ while the finished 200,000 sq ft Live! Hotel and Casino is set to feature at least 200 hotel rooms as well as a 2,600 sq ft parking garage and a casino offering some 2,000 slots alongside 125 gaming tables.
“The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board considers the licensing decision now final and unappealable,” Doug Harbach from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board reportedly told the newspaper. “Thus, we have notified Stadium Casino LLC that the fee of $50 million for its slot machine license is due [on] November 15.”
