Delta Blues Casino to break ground in one month

Lynda Edwards

Wednesday, April 14, 2004 | 8:51 a.m.

JACKSON, Miss. -- Delta Blues Casino President Charles Preiser, who once toiled for Donald Trump in the Atlantic City Taj Mahal, received Mississippi Gaming Commission final approval this week for his Greenville casino and blues museum.

The $30 million project will bloom in the Delta, the impoverished area that spawned a rich musical legacy as the birthplace of blues geniuses like Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, B.B. King and Howlin' Wolf.

Preiser expects to break ground in about a month on the 55-acre downtown Greenville parcel, the site of a defunct mill. The Delta Blues complex will include a 120-room hotel, 30,000-square-foot convention center and a nine-acre water park.

Preiser sees the 7,000-square-foot museum as the jewel that will draw for European tourists, a demographic seldom met in Mississippi casinos.

"The Delta draws a pretty steady stream of European visitors who are fascinated by blues history and love the music," Preiser said.

The museum will contain many miniature theaters each devoted to individual blues musicians and historical periods. Small groups of visitors can watch rare film and listen to audio of their favorite blues artists.

Live performances will also be featured along with memorabilia. Preiser believes that blues enthusiasts will provide the convention center with a steady steam of booking during Delta music festivals and scholarly gatherings.

A veteran casino developer, Preiser worked stints at the Golden Nugget and Bally's in Las Vegas before Trump's Taj Mahal, an experience he is happy to have survived.

"When Trump fires people, he's usually less articulate then he is on 'The Apprentice'; it's a more torturous process in real life," Preiser quipped of the reality TV show starring Trump and a troop of CEO-wannabes.

He recruited one of the Taj designers, Francis Wavier Dumont, to design the Delta Blues. The convention center and museum are scheduled for completion shortly before the casino's June 2005 completion date, according to commission spokesman Leigh Ann Wilkins.

The Gaming Commission approved of the Delta Blues' financing and construction schedule at Monday's meeting. Preiser and his Delta Blues partners Jack Newton and Steve Warner predict that most of their casino's customers will be within a 200-mile drive.

Their Greenville competition is Lighthouse Point Riverboat and Jubilee casinos. There are 29 casinos regulated by the Mississippi Gaming Commission and two others owned and operated by the Mississippi Band of Choctaws.