Live! Hotel and Casino wins Philadelphia casino license

A casino is coming to South Philadelphia.
Live! Hotel and Casino has won Philadelphia’s second casino license. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board made the announcement Tuesday to a packed house at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
Live! was one of four applicants vying for the city’s second — and final — category 2 standalone license, which enables the casino operator to have up to 5,000 slot machines and 250 table games.
The $425 million, 200,000-square-foot casino, will be located at 900 Packer Ave. near the sports complex. Plans call for a 240-room hotel, 2,000 slots and 125 table games. It will also have a spa and conference center built in and around the existing Holiday Inn.
The other three applicants were:
Tower Entertainment, LLC (The Provence) at 400 North Broad Street
Market East Associates, LP (Market 8 Casino) at 8th and Market Street
PHL Local Gaming, LLC (Casino Revolution) at 3333 South Front Street
Revenue from slots at the 12 Pennsylvania casinos was just over $191 million (up 1.1 percent year-over-year) in October 2014 while table games brought in $63 million( up 4.1 percent.)
Live! is owned by Stadium Casino LLC — a joint venture between Cordish Cos. and Greenwood Gaming and Entertainment Inc. (owner of Parx Casino).
In the mid-Atlantic region, Maryland Live! is the largest grossing casino ($50.2 million in revenues in October), while Parx is another high achiever ($41.3 million in October). Elsewhere, Cordish and its Power Plant Entertainment LLC developed Hard Rock-themed hotel-casinos in Hollywood, Fla., and Tampa, Fla.
Penn National Gaming withdrew its bid for a Philadelphia license earlier this year. It had plans to develop a $480 million Hollywood Casino at 7th and Packer Avenue in South Philadelphia. The operator teamed up with The Cordish Cos. to put in a bid for a New York casino license.
Wynn Resorts unveiled a $900 million grand plan for a casino on the Delaware River waterfront near Fishtown, but withdrew the application just days after New York voted in favor of adding casinos.
Live! will be only the second casino within city limits, along with SugarHouse Casino, which is currently undergoing a $164 million expansion, including the city’s first poker tables.
The Fishtown casino has been very vocal in its opposition of a second city casino, filing a motion earlier this month requesting that the PGCB reopen the record with regard to the second casino license.
SugarHouse Casino is arguing that since PGCB closed the record earlier in February, «significant economic events have occurred in the northeastern U.S. gaming market that must be considered, including continued deterioration of the market, severe saturation, four recent casino closings in Atlantic City and nearby states issuing more gaming licenses.»
Another casino in Philadelphia, however, would mean new opportunities for workers who recently lost their jobs in any of Atlantic City’s casinos that closed earlier this year — Atlantic Club, Showboat, Revel and Trump Plaza. A fifth, Trump Taj Mahal, will close in December.
Experts said the troubled city’s former casino workers would be flocking to nearby casino havens like Philadelphia.
«They’ll be lucky if 25 or 50 of them find jobs in [Atlantic City]. Now, where are they going to go? They’ll go to Philadelphia,» Saverio R. Scheri III, president and chief executive of WhiteSand Gaming LLC, a consulting firm with offices in Atlantic City, told the Philadelphia Business Journal earlier.
Many have been saying the rise in gaming industries in other markets such as Pennsylvania and New Jersey are the catalyst to the decline of Atlantic City. Another Philadelphia casino will no doubt have an effect on the troubled city.
Live! Hotel and Casino
Address: 900 Packer Ave.
Developer: Stadium Casino LLC
Principal: Greenwood Racing Inc., which owns the Parx Casino in Bensalem; Sterling Investors Trust, Jonathan Cordish, Blake Cordish, Reed Cordish, Joseph Weinberg. (Cordish Cos. controls Maryland Live! in Baltimore).
What we know: The 200,000-square-foot casino, on the site of the Stadium Holiday Inn, would include a 240-room hotel, 2,000 slots and 125 table games.
Cost:$425 million

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