Posted on: October 25, 2024, 01:18h.
Last updated on: October 25, 2024, 01:32h.
On Wednesday, The Cordish Companies raised its red Live! logo atop the resort that will be known as Live! Casino & Hotel Louisiana when it opens next year.
Slated to open in the first quarter of 2025, Cordish is investing $270 million to redevelop the former Diamond Jacks riverboat casino and hotel in Bossier City into a Live!-branded destination. Joshua Robinson, vice president of marketing for the forthcoming resort in Northwest Louisiana, says the placement of the logo atop the 11-story hotel marks the “beginning of a new era.”
Putting the sign on the building is like putting the icing on the cake,” Robinson said. “It’s an exciting day. People are getting ready to get ‘live.’”
Cordish’s investment in Louisiana will increase the company’s gaming portfolio to three states, including Maryland and Pennsylvania, where it operates Live! Casino & Hotel Maryland near Baltimore-Washington International Airport, Live! Casino & Hotel Philadelphia in the city’s Stadium District, and Live! Casino Pittsburgh in the city’s suburb of Westmoreland.
Diamond in the Rough
Diamond Jacks was permanently closed during the pandemic. The riverboat’s owner at the time — Peninsula Pacific Entertainment — sought to relocate its state-issued gaming license from Bossier City to the north of New Orleans in Slidell, but local voters there pushed back.
Citing claims of an oversaturated market, P2E opted to fold on Louisiana and sold the Diamond Jacks boat and hotel to Foundation Gaming in December 2022. The Mississippi-based riverboat gaming operator initially planned to spend $200 million to complete a much-needed renovation of the deteriorating casino and hotel, but just four months later, Foundation agreed to sell the complex to Cordish.
Despite no experience in redeveloping distressed casinos, Cordish sought an opportunity to expand its gaming operations south. Cordish pledged a richer makeover than Foundation, highlighted by a new 47K-square-foot brick-and-mortar casino.
Live! Casino & Hotel Louisiana will include 1,000 slot machines and electronic table gaming positions, 40 live dealer table games, and a sportsbook. The hotel accommodations are being renovated to “upscale.”
The destination will additionally offer a 31-site RV park with concrete pads and full hookups, 25K square feet of multipurpose event space, and a parking garage. The resort’s outdoor pool in front of the hotel entrance is also being renovated.
Live! Casino will return the Bossier City/Shreveport gaming market to six properties along with Boomtown, Bally’s, Horseshoe, Sam’s Town, and Margaritaville.
‘Transformative’ Development
Cordish is promising lofty economic benefits. Along with 750 forthcoming permanent jobs, the company expects to deliver Bossier City $35 million in gaming taxes during the casino’s first five years in operation, and $168 million in state gaming taxes.
Cordish says its 750 team members will receive an estimated $34 million a year in pay and tips, or about $45,333 per employee. According to the US Census Bureau, the median household income in Bossier City is $54,100, meaning a couple working at the casino would make considerably more than the average household.
Cordish has also pledged to contract local, minority, women, and veteran-owned businesses.
