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Casino to semi-break ground
Published Wednesday, June 11, 2008
NATCHEZ — A ceremonial ground breaking for the Roth Hill Road casino will be in conjunction with the Country Inn and Suites grand opening from 5 to 7 tonight.
Due to river conditions, the assessment of when construction will actually begin won’t be until later this month, Natchez Enterprises President Ted Doody has said.
“We’re still waiting to see what the Mississippi is going to do with the spring thaw,” he said.
Casino representatives have had conversations with river experts about the river rising again.
The very first leg of the casino construction is shoring up the banks.
“Obviously we can’t do that if the riverbank is under water,” Doody said. “That’s what’s driving our train right now.”
Instead of an actual ground breaking, there will be a project presentation.
“It will be kind of talking some more about the design,” Doody said of the project. “There will be some renderings and explanations of some of the amenities offered as part of the casino.”
For the hotel, when the doors swung open for the first time to allow guests, it was only a soft opening, convention center Director Walter Tipton said.
“With any major project, what you do is have what’s considered a soft opening,” he said. “That gives you time to get the kinks worked out.”
He said scheduling the grand opening took some time because the hotel was booked with big conferences.
“We’re very excited, not only because of the fact that it’s going to be officially opened, but the recent business we’ve booked in the last couple of weeks just reinforces the strategy of having a hotel adjacent to our conference center,” Tipton said.
Recently it was announced that the Mississippi State Medical Association will be having their 2010 conference in Natchez, their first time to convene in the city.
This particular conference is estimated to bring in 200 people.
The Mississippi National Guard will also have a conference in Natchez in 2009.
“Those conferences wouldn’t be interested in Natchez without this infrastructure,” Tipton said.
Though the casino and the hotel aren’t an actual duo and are unrelated entities, Tipton said they’ve paired up for this event because they are basically neighbors.
“The two developments are in close proximity of each other,” he said. “We both are going to sit at the end of Main Street on the banks of the Mississippi River.”
The hotel will also host a Business After Hours through the Natchez-Adams Chamber of Commerce.
Chamber Director Debbie Hudson said the hotel made the request in April and that it’s typical for new businesses to have an after hours as part of their grand opening.
“It’s a great networking time,” Hudson said.
The official cutting of the ribbon will be at 6 p.m. and there will be a small band present for entertainment
Comments
Posted by sayitloud (anonymous) on June 12, 2008 at 6:37 a.m. (Suggest removal)
double yawn
Posted by Preacher (anonymous) on June 12, 2008 at 7:03 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Ditto
Posted by sandyman7 (anonymous) on June 12, 2008 at 7:59 a.m. (Suggest removal)
OMG Its almost comical the way the gamblers can yank our city officals chain....Mention a gambling boat coming to town and ther tongues hit the floor.!!!!
Posted by kpage (anonymous) on June 12, 2008 at 8:20 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I guess everyone's gonna stand out in the oppressive heat and look at the cardboard model of the new place. I won't be able to be there...At 6:30 tonite I'm hoping Wheel of Fortune will show my Spinner ID number and I get to go to Cabo San Lucas.
Posted by sayitloud (anonymous) on June 12, 2008 at 8:58 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Cabo! I'm jealous kpage! Hope you win!!
Posted by Perro (anonymous) on June 12, 2008 at 12:19 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Just how many @#%& boats and hotels are they going to bring to Natchez? It sure would be good to have incoming jobs that pay over minimum wage like a plant duh. The last @#% thing this town needs is something that encourages imoral and bad habits. It is funny how people fight to keep industry from coming to this town thinking it would hurt this old south image but yet they will preserve the image of a town riddled with gambling.
Posted by snatchez (anonymous) on June 12, 2008 at 3:05 p.m. (Suggest removal)
now that Lane has gotten a free ride from the city, who wants to bet that the other free rider- Country Inn and Suites who got a 1.5 million government loan and the land for free doesn't join in with Lane and have a casino and a hotel. One of the owners of the hotels is also a casino owner (flamingo casino). A whole bunch of rats near the river.
Posted by sayitloud (anonymous) on June 12, 2008 at 3:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Good point snatchez!
Posted by buttercup26 (anonymous) on June 12, 2008 at 4:20 p.m. (Suggest removal)
COME ON WITH IT NTZ!! LOL STOP TEASING NOW I'M READY TO HIT THE PENNY SLOTS!! I'LL BE THERE WITH MY DOLLAR BILLS SIPPING ON A ''FREE DRINK'' lol ya'll think i'm loud and silly on this thing you should party with me AT THE GRAND OPENING!!
Posted by sammohon (anonymous) on June 12, 2008 at 7:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Perro...many of the jobs the @#%& boats and hotels bring are good, over minimum wage jobs...the first thing this @#% town needs is more jobs period...whether you think gambling is "imoral" (sp) or a bad habit is your opinion, and may not be as bad a habit as your @#$% all the time.
I don't think many are fighting to keep industry out, that's a red herring thrown out by people who are jealous of people who they perceive may be in a higher financial or social bracket than they are themselves.
Did it ever occur to you that Natchez may never have lost the industries it once had if the labor unions hadn't gotten greedy?...I'll bet it didn't, but it's at least partially true that Armstrong, Titan, IP, Diamond and others simply couldn't continue to make a profit because of union demands...it's part of the history of Natchez and one of the reasons some industries have avoided Natchez...it's not all the "blue-haired old ladies and garden clubbers" that are to blame.
Posted by sammohon (anonymous) on June 12, 2008 at 7:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I've got a comment for ND...how does one "semi-break ground"?...you either do or you don't, if a shovel pierces the surface of the ground it IS a groundbreaking...there was another headline today..."Towels Cause Near Fire"...did the towels nearly cause a fire or did the towels cause a fire that was near?...Just what is a near fire?...was there a fire or not, and were the towels near...you get my point? I think I'll semi-be there...LOL.
Posted by starla (anonymous) on June 12, 2008 at 8:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The last thing this place needs is another casino! With the economy in bad shape and the prices of gas and food going thru the roof, people will be going on these things hoping to win, but they won't. So sad!
Posted by OldGrandDad (anonymous) on June 12, 2008 at 8:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Perro, apart from the folks that are anti-tourism, I've never met ANYONE who tried to keep "industry" out of Natchez. Anyone who thinks large plants/factories are going to come back to Natchez are simply deluding themselves. They left here due to a world-wide trend and NOT our local politics. No one is going to pay an American $30 an hour to screw nuts onto bolts when he can hire an Indian to do it for .25 an hour or less.
Posted by OldGrandDad (anonymous) on June 12, 2008 at 8:33 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Sam, when I read "semi-break ground" I thought of my wife's miniature shovel she uses in the flower bed. But I sometimes push the shovel into the ground and put a little pressure on it to make a "V" shaped hole to put in fertilizer for trees. Then I close it back up. Maybe that's what the casino did. Please pardon me if this is a semi-post......
Posted by sammohon (anonymous) on June 12, 2008 at 10:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)
OGD...my wife is union and strangely enough Republican, I'm a sole proprietor, anti-union, small business kind-of-guy, strange, huh, but...she works for UPS and I've never understood how UPS could compete with FedEx, which is non-union, at the rate she is paid to deliver packages...I can understand how DHL competes since they are subsidized by the German government...FedEx must be making a killing since they charge similarly, but don't have to pay union wages or benefits.
Maybe it's because they only drive semi-semis...LOL...man, you got appreciate how far I had to go for that joke!
Posted by sammohon (anonymous) on June 12, 2008 at 10:38 p.m. (Suggest removal)
starla...it is Darwinism at it's finest...the people who work for the casinos will get PAID...they will be able to support their families...the folks who gamble will spend their discretionary income on entertainment to pay the employees or for the ones who are so stupid as to spend their non-discretionary income gambling, they will also pay the employees, but they may not survive unless they learn to adapt...the spouses affected should learn to recognize the "dinosaurs", take the children and run.
Posted by OldGrandDad (anonymous) on June 12, 2008 at 10:52 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Sam, I'll make an almost near semi-post and say that I think its ok to be union and Republican. Actually, that might make someone semi-union or maybe semi-republican. Obviously their union dues will undoubtedly be spent towards the Democrats, but hopefully the money will still circulate through the economy......
Your wife must not work the downtown area.
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