Pending voter approval, real estate developers the Cordish Companies and Bruce Smith Enterprise will build a Live! Casino & Hotel to anchor a $1.4 billion mixed-use development in Petersburg, Virginia, the companies announced.
The 200-room resort will span 400,000 square feet, including 35,000 square feet of meetings and events space. The hotel will include 20 suites, a 3,000-seat entertainment venue and a pool and fitness center. The hotel will also feature eight food and entertainment concepts, including three spaces reserved for local Petersburg businesses.
The casino will include a bar and restaurant, 1,000 slot machines, 46 live-action table games and a 15-table poker room.
The resort and surrounding development, dubbed Live! Gaming & Entertainment District, is located off Interstate 95.
Baltimore-based Cordish Companies and Virginia developer Bruce Smith Enterprise aim to open an initial first phase casino within a year of voter approval.
The firms have a longstanding relationship, according to the announcement, and their joint venture partnership will be the first in the gaming and entertainment industry to have a minority-owned business enterprise as co-development partner.
The joint venture’s Petersburg-based ownership team, which makes up 50% minority equity participation, will become the largest minority ownership opportunity in the gaming and hospitality industry in the country, according to the announcement.
Baltimore-based Cordish Companies is expanding in the South and is currently under construction on other projects in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas.
The company opened a Nashville Live! in Tennessee in October, and in December, the developer broke ground on another Live! Casino & Hotel in Louisiana.
In South Florida, the developer is working with Caesars Entertainment on The Pomp, a 233-acre mixed-use development that will include two hotels and a remodeled Harrah’s Pompano Beach casino.
Bruce Smith Enterprise previously co-developed the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Washington, D.C.; a Hilton Garden Inn in Blacksburg, Virginia; and a Hyatt House Hotel in Virginia Beach.
