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Construction of Toledo’s Hollywood Casino nearly complete (video)

Hollywood Casino Toledo tour Jan. 20, 2012 Mike Galle and Richard St. Jean talk about the Hollywood Casino Toledo. St. Jean is the general manager. Galle is assistant general manager. Watch video TOLEDO, Ohio — It’s all done except for the carpet.

Well, that and it’s still missing a couple thousand slot machines and table games.

In the first glimpse Friday inside the Hollywood Casino being developed on the outskirts of Toledo, officials with Penn National Gaming Inc. said they could have the gambling equipment installed within 48 hours if necessary.

And they indicated they are hoping to swipe the honor of being the first Las Vegas-style casino to open in Ohio away from the Cleveland casino being built in the Higbee Building by rival Rock Ohio Caesars.

The Cleveland casino had been scheduled to open March 26 with Toledo opening a week later, but that timetable was rejected recently by state officials who said they were weeks behind in doing background investigations on the casino operators, major investors and vendors because the casino developers and their partners had been slow to cooperate.

View full sizeThomas Ondrey, The Plain DealerAn electrician works on the wiring that will connect to the gaming tables still to come at the Hollywood Casino Toledo on Friday, Jan 20, 2012. Construction at the casino is expected to be completed by March.

New opening dates, perhaps as late as June, are expected to be set by the Ohio Casino Control Commission by Feb. 1. The Hollywood Casino’s general manager, Richard St. Jean, said he expects that whoever is ready first will open first.

“Obviously our timing is very close,” said St. Jean as he guided reporters on a tour of his casino’s 125,000 square-foot main gambling floor.

“We’re actually ahead of schedule,” he said. “We could put down carpet and the table games in 48 hours. We’re ready to go. That’s why we need clarity on an opening date.”

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But JoAnn Davidson, chairwoman of the Ohio Casino Control Commission, said it has not made any decision on who will open first. She added that there was a lot of regulatory work that needs to be done – background investigations, testing of equipment, licensure – before the casinos could open, and that the commission might actually set a date range for the openings, instead of an exact day.

“There will have to be a couple of weeks between the openings,” Davidson said. “We suggested that they might want to get together and negotiate that, and they came back and said we can’t do that, you’ll have to do it.”

“We’re working toward a decision, but there’s been none made yet,” she added. “We don’t want to have any other false starts here. We realize how critically important it is because it involves employment.”

Ohio Rock Caesars has hundreds of people currently training to be card dealers for Cleveland’s Horseshoe Casino in the Higbee Building, a $480 million project that will offer 2,100 slots machines, 63 table games, a 30-table poker room and buffet restaurant on four floors of the former Cleveland department store. The developer is a joint venture between Dan Gilbert’s Rock Gaming LLC and Caesars Entertainment Corp.

View full sizeThomas Ondrey, The Plain DealerThe guest services area, under construction, at the Hollywood Casino Toledo on Jan. 20, 2012.

The $300 million Hollywood Casino Toledo, which will be owned and operated by Penn National, has trained about 225 card dealers at a local community college.

The Hollywood casino, Penn National’s 12th, is expecting 2.8 million gamblers a year, according to company estimates.

Like the other Hollywood casinos, it has an art deco 1930s Hollywood motif combined with modern design touches like a $10 million multi-media system that will allow guests to watch movie trailers, scenes from classic Hollywood movies and sports events on floor-to-ceiling glass walls.

“We’re trying to carry a theme of old and new throughout the building,” explained Jason Birney, marketing vice president. Birney said the casino was partnering with studios such as Universal, Disney and Lionsgate to promote their movies with gamblers.

“Marilyn is in the house now,” declared Mike Galle, assistant general manager as he walked past a wall-sized painting of actress Marilyn Monroe. “She wasn’t here two days ago. You can see how quickly we’re working.”

The casino will have 2,000 slot machines, 20 poker tables, and 60 other table games – blackjack, roulette, and craps. It will have a 158-seat steakhouse and lounge that overlooks the Maumee River and downtown Toledo, a 260-seat buffet restaurant, a sports bar, deli and lounge with live entertainment nightly.

St. Jean thinks that the casino’s location, 44 acres outside downtown just off I-75, and ample free parking will draw visitors because of the convenience. But he added, “At the end of the day, we think service is going to be the difference between us and other casinos.”

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 and is filed under Online Gambling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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