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PINNACLE:
A PARTNER IN DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT
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By
all accounts, St. Louis hit the jackpot when Pinnacle Entertainment
publicly announced its intentions to enter the local entertainment
market in September, 2005. Las Vegas-based Pinnacle is bringing
to the City of St. Louis the highest-priced private financed
business development in the modern era.
Let’s put this project into some kind of perspective. The Cardinals
invested $365 million in the new Busch Stadium, and that figure
includes state and county money within the financial package.
The Edward Jones Dome is valued at $265 million—all financed
by public money. The Metropolitan Square building represents
a $100 million investment, and the only project within the Pinnacle
range would be the Union Station development using investment
figures comparable to today’s dollars.
Pinnacle is investing a remarkable $430 million into a downtown
project that will include a 90,000-square-foot casino, a 200-room
luxury hotel, spa, business center, fine restaurants and 12,000
square-feet of meeting and convention space. And the whole project,
parking structures and all is shoe-horned onto a 7.5 acre tract
of land on the edge of Laclede’s Landing entertainment district
at Second Street, and bumping up to the elevated portion of
the always busy I-70.
Additionally, Pinnacle purchased the Embassy Suites hotel for
an undisclosed amount and will undergo a $25 million renovation
to be completed by first quarter, 2007. At the same time, the
Las Vegas-based entertainment firm has committed another $25
million for a 10-story condominium development on Laclede’s
Landing. The Port St. Louis condominium development of Mark
and John Rodgers Tower Group will provide the first new permanent
housing in Laclede’s Landing ever.
And if that was not enough, Pinnacle has broken ground on another
$375 million casino, hotel and entertainment project that surely
will uplift the depressed Lemay community in South St. Louis
County. The overall Pinnacle commitment regionally is nearly
one-billion dollars.
Pinnacle is not dropping anchor just to mix it up with the locally-established
gaming operations. Competitors would include Ameristar in St.
Charles; Harrah’s in Maryland Heights, the Casino Queen in East
St. Louis or the Alton Belle. Pinnacle wants to carve out a
healthy share of the gaming market overall to become the regional
leader and set a new standard for excellence. Pinnacle also
recently claimed ownership of the President Casino on the downtown
riverfront.
“Pinnacle will be here for a very long time and we need to be
good neighbors,” reasons Mack Bradley, senior vice president
with the Vandiver Group and local spokesperson for Pinnacle
Entertainment. Pinnacle is here to become the supreme player
in the gaming market. What they promise to deliver is a product
nothing short of superior facilities in terms of design, experience
and sheer entertainment value. Jaws will drop when the doors
swing open, according to Bradley.
“The philosophy of Pinnacle is producing an experience that
a guest cannot get anywhere else in the market. This project
is truly remarkable in terms of quality and scale and will feature
a luxury hotel to rival properties such as the Westin and Ritz
Carlton,” predicts Bradley.
The first thing planners noticed was the interruption between
the Pinnacle property and the rest of the downtown area referring
mainly to the Edward Jones Dome, just west of the construction
site. Therefore, Pinnacle is building an underground People
Link (pedestrian connection) under I-70 that will carry guests
by people movers from Pinnacle’s property to the Dome in a safe
and comfortable manner. Anybody can utilize the convenience
of the People Link to go safely under the highway to downtown.
Developers want the project to be noticed from far distances.
A 19-story gleaming glass and chrome hotel tower will have a
beacon on the 20th floor that can be seen at night from as far
away as Lambert International Airport. The downtown St. Louis
skyline will be transformed forever because of this gleaming
new project.
Pinnacle is impacting the downtown market in many ways. Let’s
talk about jobs. The project is estimated to create more than
4,500 jobs: 700 high paying construction jobs; 1,300 permanent
jobs and an additional 2,500 ancillary service jobs in the region.
Pinnacle has made a serious commitment to minority and women-owned
company construction per an initiative of St. Louis’ Mayor Francis
Slay. “We have brought in employees just to manage that side
of the business,” reports Bradley.
The company is working with McCarthy Building Companies of St.
Louis as the general contractor. Marnell Corrao Associates of
Las Vegas leads the design team, which is incorporating open
space and contemporary ambiance in a design inspired by Frank
Lloyd Wright. The soaring tower with dramatic light feature
will become an obvious new icon along the riverfront to complement
the Gateway Arch. This is the only four-crane project going
on in the Midwest.
Daniel R. Lee, chairman and CEO of Pinnacle Entertainment is
mostly proud of the overall commitment to downtown St. Louis.
“We will build a destination here that will help to lead to
the revitalization of the city’s urban core. Pinnacle will impact
the north end of downtown the way Busch Stadium has to the south
end, and the way Washington Avenue has development going toward
the edge of the City sprawling westward.
“We’re here to help the resurgence in downtown St. Louis. There’s
just a whole lot going on here,” says Bradley proudly.
Already, the St. Louis region is in the top 10 of gaming markets
outside of Las Vegas. The Pinnacle project could help St. Louis
to leap-frog to third place behind only Vegas and Atlantic City.
Pinnacle wants to be alive with guests and hopping when major
events like the NCAA basketball tournament and city-wide conventions
hit town. Pinnacle people are working hand-in-glove with the
St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission to make that happen.
More business is on the convention books in 2007 and 2008 than
in previous years.
St. Louis Convention & Visitors Vice President Communications
Nancy Milton welcomes the project to town. “It’s great to have
such a fast-growing gaming company investing in major projects
in both St. Louis City and County. Leisure visitors tell us
that the variety of things to see and do in St. Louis is what
attracts them to our destination. The new Pinnacle casinos will
certainly increase the pool of activities and new sights that
are available to our audiences,” says Milton. She went on saying:
“We are for anything that helps bring more visitors to our area.”
For all intents, this project marks the first major construction
in Laclede’s Landing in more than 100 years. Parking garages
don’t count. Up until now, all construction has been limited
to rehabilitating historic buildings. In the last six to 10
years, more than $4.3 billion has been poured into downtown
construction, counting the Pinnacle project. Pinnacle promises
to build on the “wow factor” to establish its place in the market.
“We will change the skyline of downtown St. Louis. We will move
people under a highway and into other parts of the City. We
will have a world-class casino and hotel that will make people
be excited about coming downtown. And it all kicks off in 2007,”
says Bradley boldly.
Lemay Project off the Ground:
As mentioned, the second Pinnacle $375 million project, located
in Lemay is underway. The past year has been devoted to cleaning
up an abandoned national lead site; and from the ashes will
rise a new hotel and gaming facility with shops, parking structures
and amenities for the local community including a skating rink,
movie theatre complex; hatch-shell music venue, public park
with athletic fields, reflection pools, tennis courts, community
center and other features sorely lacking in this end of the
deep county.
St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley knows the importance
of revitalizing Lemay. “Pinnacle’s River City project will truly
be a unique destination in our region and will create jobs and
vital economic activity in Lemay,” says Dooley. He added: “More
than that, the birth of River City means the environmental clean-up
of a long-abandoned industrial site, the creation of a new and
long-needed road in the County, connecting Interstate 55 with
the South Broadway corridor will spur even more economic development
in both the County and the City of St. Louis.” A development
package was recently announced for the portion of land alongside
I-55 and Bayless Road.
Pinnacle is a great partner for overall St. Louis progress,
and the front door of the first project is still a long way
off from swinging opening. No one is arguing the point.
Downtown
Pinnacle Casino—a Floating Boat in a Moat
Because of regulations of the Missouri Gaming Commission,
all gambling casinos must float in water, be located near
the Mississippi or Missouri rivers, and be located within
1,000 feet of those bodies of water. This would be termed
a ‘boat in a moat’ configuration. Pinnacle has gone to elaborate
lengths to make that happen. The 90,000-square-foot casino
will sit atop a pseudo-floating barge. A configuration of
catacombs was created to be filled with water, each having
concrete bulkheads to avoid any flooding. This configuration
is the same arrangement found with bulkheads on a steel
ship.
The construction calls for 214 chambers, giving it the look
from high above of honeycomb construction. Once complete,
the chambers will be filled with water taken and purified
from the Mississippi River. Patrons will have no idea the
floor they are standing on is atop a floating barge. But,
that it will be. |
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