DiamondJacks Bossier City New Owner to Present Reopening Plans Next Month

DiamondJacks Casino inward Bossier City, La., has sat closed since the oncoming of the COVID-19 pandemic inwards March of 2020. It testament follow at to the lowest degree another yr before gaming resumes at the property.

Foundation Gaming, a regional casino operator based inwards Mississippi with a rail register of refurbishing hard-pressed gaming properties, finally month entered into a buy-sell correspondence with DiamondJacks possessor Peninsula Pacific Ocean Entertainment (P2E). The terms testament eventually termination inwards Foundation taking controller of the LA riverboat after purchasing come out P2E for an undisclosed sum.

Louisiana Gaming Control Board (LGCB) revealed yesterday that the transaction is proceeding as planned. LGCB Chair Ronnie Johns added that P2E selling the cassino and gaming license — as opposed to forfeiting the let — will greatly hasten the clip it will accept to take back unrecorded gambling.

If Peninsula Pacific Ocean would experience surrendered the license, Pelican State natural law would require the say board open up upwards a competitory summons process. With regulatory probes of the interested companies and downplay checks on paint officials, the operation would experience likely taken several years.

Johns says Foundation company officials testament lay out an in-depth renovation program to the board sometime next month.

DiamondJacks Timeline

Peninsula Pacific Ocean Entertainment unsuccessfully sought to relocate its Louisiana casino permit to Slidell just now compass north of New siege of Orleans amid the pandemic. P2E justified that the Bossier City market place has go oversaturated.

While the LGCB agreed to sign-off on the move, the transference required local favorable reception of residents inwards St. Tammany Parish, rest home to Slidell. But locals voted against the P2E tar — a $325 million propose called Camellia Bay Resort — during a 2021 December vote.

With St. Tammany remaining a non-gambling parish, and hence terminating the Camelia Bay scheme, P2E was told it must reopen the DiamondJacks cassino or give up its gaming privileges. Foundation Gaming plans to make for DiamondJacks backrest to life, as it did with its 2 casinos in MS — Fitz Tunica Casino & Hotel and WaterView Casino & Hotel in Vicksburg.

“They’re a very reputable company,” Jasper Johns said of Foundation Gaming during Wednesday’s LGCB meeting. “They have got a story of taking distressed properties and renovating them into practically nicer and much to a greater extent viable properties, specially in Mississippi.”

Renovation First

With DiamondJacks sitting vacant for more than ii years, Foundation reps say the dimension requires substantial investment funds before guests can return. The keep company told the LGCB that it testament use up a twelvemonth or longer to renovate the resort’s 560 hotel guestrooms, get together spaces, and restaurants.

Foundation also needs to purchase most upcountry equipment after P2E liquidated many of the resort’s furnishings, including everything from commercial message kitchen equipment to guestroom lamps and flat-screen televisions.

Foundation also plans to submit reward of the state’s 2018 practice of law that allows riverboat casinos to relocation inland upwards to 1,200 feet from their archetype barges. The young gaming space, Johns said as relayed to him by Foundation officials, will follow practically more appealing.

The older legacy riverboats had very low ceilings and were smoky,” Johns said. “Going with the land-based property, they experience the ability to put inward a really high-tech, first-class ventilation system system of rules that’s a safer surround for the customer.

“It’s going to be a nicer experience,” Johns concluded.