The development team that is behind the city’s slots facility is planning to open a $164 million casino facility that would employ more than nine hundred casino employees full-time in 2011.
Baltimore City Entertainment Group stated before a state panel on August 26th, 2009 that it expects to open a 250,000 square-foot casino facility with 3,750 slot machines called “Celebration Casino” located on Russell Street south of MandT Bank Stadium in the middle of 2011.
The developers said that the casino facility would employ 926 individuals full time with average salaries of $41,000 aside from benefits. It also would create two thousand construction jobs over sixteen to eighteen months in 2010 and 2011.
With the maximum number of machines being placed immediately, the team projects earnings of $504 million in its 1st year of operation, up to $651 million by 2015. That would mean $430 million for the state coffers and $19.5 million to the city by 2015.
The casino’s plan includes nine thousand square feet of gaming space, a four-hundred seat buffet area, a 120-seat chop house and 100-seat bar with live entertainment. A 2,500-space parking area is also planned at the casino site. The casino development team plans to model the architecture and feel of the casino to show the city’s history in manufacturing, with industrial windows and brick building facades.
Michael Cryor, one of Baltimore City Entertainment’s leaders said that they want this casino location to showcase their history in sports and waterfront. He added that they want it to have a one-of-a kind made in Baltimore brand. It was not clear how the development team could push ahead with more than five hundred slot machines without the go signal from the slots panel.
That is how many were included in the group’s application in February 2009. But the state attorney general’s office advised the panel that it was within the limits of the state law for the panel to approve certain changes to previously submitted casino gaming plans.
Baltimore Development Corporation Executive Vice President Kimberly A. Clark stated that environmental studies have found arsenic, lead and mercury in the soil at the location, the former site of the Maryland Chemical Corporation but she downplayed the level of contamination.
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