BILOXI, Miss. — The casino floors are full, and construction is on the rise, but there's a dilemma amid the economic revival in this storm-battered Gulf Coast city. Should casinos and the condominium projects they draw be allowed to sprawl across the city? Or should city leaders and residents rein in the development surge? Eleven of the city's 13 casinos have reopened since Hurricane Katrina, and an additional eight casinos are likely to sprout in Biloxi in the next six years. As casinos return, condo projects have followed. The number of proposed condo units has risen from 4,000 before Katrina to 12,000 today, said Vincent Creel, a Biloxi city spokesman.
The boom in construction makes Biloxi one of the few Gulf Coast cities battered by the hurricane in 2005 that may actually be recovering too fast. "We'd like to be a city with casinos, not a casino city," Creel said. Casinos bring extra revenue — but also extra development and growth. Condominiums typically follow booms in resort areas as more residents flock to places offering gambling attractions, glitzy restaurants new jobs and investment opportunities.
A 1990 Mississippi law legalized casinos — as long as they were offshore. Barges lined with blackjack tables and roulette wheels developed along Biloxi's coast. Millions of dollars in gaming revenue rolled into city coffers and schools, roads and police stations opened. When Hurricane Katrina slammed into the coastline, it obliterated many of the casinos, tossing some of the barges across U.S. Highway 90, the main waterfront artery. As an incentive to rebuild, state legislators lifted the ban on land-based casinos in a special session in September 2005. The gaming industry returned full-throttle, creating divisions throughout the city on how the casino building boom should take shape.
The divisions came to a head in late September, when developers requested a zoning change to build a 30-acre, $1 billion casino across from Highway 90. The City Council narrowly voted to allow the variances 4-3 — only to have the plan vetoed by Mayor A.J. Holloway. Holloway said he would like to see casinos stay on the Gulf side of Highway 90 and concentrated along the peninsula in east Biloxi. "If you open that door to casinos, you may as well open the entire city to gambling," Holloway said. "I don't think that's the intention of the law." Because the casino industry is booming — gamblers are likely to wager more than $1 billion here this year — new casinos need to be bigger and more spectacular to draw customers, said Michael Cavanaugh, an attorney representing casino developers. That means more zoning variances should be granted, and in areas other than the waterfront, he said. "The old days of putting a barge in a minimum hotel with a few amenities are gone," he said.
The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Biloxi was set to open two days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall. It was pummeled badly. Sensing the area's potential, the casino's owners didn't hesitate on the $175 million renovation and reopened in July, said Joe Billhimer, the casino's president and CEO. On a recent Friday night, the blackjack tables at the Hard Rock were crowded two rows deep, and roulette tables overflowed. "Everything's coming back bigger, better," Billhimer says.
Bigger and better is an intimidating thought to some in this beachfront Bible Belt community. There are concerns, among other things, over lack of affordable housing for the thousands of workers who will be employed by the casinos, Creel said. The goal is not to keep casinos from building in Biloxi, but to regulate where and how they do, preventing wall-to-wall casinos and condos, said retired Air Force lieutenant general Clark Griffith, who led a post-Katrina steering committee."Yes, we need to bring them in," Griffith said of the casinos. "But
Source: USAtoday.com