Hard Rock Terre Haute Casino Proposal Supported By Indiana Community’s Leaders

If officials in Terre Haute, Ind., had their way, the cassino that would live coming to the westward exchange IN town would follow a Hard Rock.

Last month, the Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce, the Vigo County Council, and all III members of the county’s Board of Commissioners sent letters to Robert Indiana Gaming Commission Executive Director Greg Small. The letters verbalized their livelihood for the Florida-based gaming company’s proposal.

Casino.org obtained the letters Tuesday through and through an unresolved records call for to the commission.

The letters were likewise worded and touched upon collimate themes. That included noting Hard Rock’s externalize is fully designed and could disruption strand shortly after the IGC makes its award.

That awarding day of the month is mark for Nov. 17.

Locals: Hard John Rock Ready to Roll

The commissioners and chamber officials also noted that the twist jobs resulting from the externalize would generate more than $3 one thousand thousand in local wages, with tens of millions spent on subcontractors and suppliers inward the area.

“We exhort you to all over this operation inward an expedited mode and strongly turn over the sentiment of the community inward this matter,” said Vigo County Commissioners Ivan Mike Robert Morris and Chris Switzer inwards their Sept. 17 letters.

Chamber President Kristin Craig and 2021 Board Chair John Collett included the same railway line inwards their Sept. 20 letter.

Hard Rock International is ane of four applicants for the cassino license. Winston S. Churchill Downs Incorporated, Full House Resorts, and Terre Haute Entertainment, a partnership that includes Premier Gaming Group, also submitted bids by the Sept. 22 deadline.

In a notice on its website, the IGC told potential applicants that ace factor in country officials must debate when making an award is whether there’s “a resolve of support” from the local biotic community for the applicant. It’s 1 of eight factors, but none of them are weighted.

IGC Deputy Director William Le Baron Jenny Reske told Casino.org Tuesday that local reenforcement is not a requirement for licensure.

Terre Haute Businessman Involved in Casino Venture

A spokesperson for Hard Rock declined to commentary straight on the letters, and referred inquiries to a statement COO Jon George Lucas gave Casino.org finally Wednesday. That was regarding the company’s partnership with Terre Haute man of affairs Greg Gibson on the venture.

“Hard John Rock International (HRI) is excited for the chance to fetch our unique brand of human beings class entertainment to Terre Haute,” George Lucas said. “We expect a development cost of nearly $200 Million, inward increase to the 175 onsite hotel rooms, 2,000 jobs during deuce expression phases, and $50 Million a twelvemonth inwards one-year county and say revenue enhancement revenue once the externalise is operational.”

Gibson led Lucy Luck, the jeopardize that antecedently held the cassino license. However, to a greater extent than a twelvemonth after winning the license, the IGC took the believed-to-be unprecedented step of not revitalising it. The province gaming regulatory dead body cited the deficiency of construction, as comfortably as concerns nearly executive director staffing and funding for the venture, for their decision inward June.

Lucy Luck’s plans were to build a Hard John Rock casino. Those plans called for upward to 1,150 slot machines and 50 tabularise games.

In the financial statement last-place week, Lucas noted that Hard Rock would manage the day-to-day operations of the casino. It appears to live a similar setup to the unexampled body structure for Hard Rock Northern Indiana.

Hard John Rock bought the bulk post from Gibson’s Spectacle Entertainment in August, after the IGC had questions about Spectacle’s suitableness as the permit holder. Those questions mainly stemmed from a lengthy investigating into the companion and Gibson’s former partner, Rod Ratcliff.

While non naming Althea Gibson specifically, the seven-member Vigo County Council cited in its Sept. 22 letter of the alphabet Hard Rock’s “local member,” and their contributions to the community.

This same local member worked helping hand in mitt with our local leaders and legislators to overhaul House Enrolled Act 1015 and take a leak the licensing of a cassino inwards Vigo County possible,” the council wrote.

That practice of law was passed past res publica lawmakers in 2019. Not only when did it ply a land-based cassino permit for Vigo County, ratified by local voters that November, it also legalized sports betting across the state.