Gaming regulators OK site of proposed St. Louis casino

Jim Suhr

Friday, Jan. 14, 2005 | 9:54 a.m.

ST. LOUIS -- Missouri gaming regulators have signed off on the proposed location of a new downtown St. Louis casino, ruling that the site also expected to feature a hotel is close enough to the Mississippi River to pass constitutional muster.

The Missouri Gaming Commission on Wednesday unanimously backed the site plan for Pinnacle Entertainment Inc.'s casino on Laclede's Landing, declaring the site legally within 1,000 feet of the river's main channel.

Missouri's constitution allows riverboat casinos to float in manmade moats as long as the gaming site is no farther than 1,000 feet from the nearest edge of the main channel.

Las Vegas-based Pinnacle's project, the commission found, meets the requirement when "channel" includes the typically dry land covered by water when the river is at flood stage, commission spokesman Harold Bailey said Thursday.

Without using that definition provided by the Army Corps of Engineers, Pinnacle's site would not be within the 1,000-feet threshold, Bailey said.

"The question is where you start to measure the 1,000 feet mark," he said.

Pinnacle, hoping to open the $258 million casino and hotel project late next year or in early 2007, still requires licensing by the gaming commission.

On Wednesday, the commission also endorsed Pinnacle's request to be permanently docked and the casino's planned exterior design, which by law must reflect the state's riverboat history.

Calling the approvals "important milestones for our downtown St. Louis project," Daniel Lee -- Pinnacle's chairman and chief executive -- said the company now can press ahead and finalize design plans for the project.

In September, the gaming commission tapped Pinnacle to develop casinos in downtown St. Louis and in south St. Louis County, rejecting proposals by several other casino operators.

If it wins licensing approval from state regulators, Pinnacle's downtown site would feature a roughly $200 million casino and five-star hotel. Pinnacle also has agreed to spend $50 million on residential development in the city, perhaps in the form of a condominium tower at Laclede's Landing. Pinnacle will pay a fine if it does not build the project within five years of opening the downtown casino.

Pinnacle also expects to build a $300 million mixed-use gaming and retail complex at the south St. Louis County site near Lemay. Scheduled to open in late 2007, that site would feature a 90,000-square-foot casino, 100-room hotel, retail space, movie theater and bowling alley on 80 acres of land.