Things are heating up in Maryland.
Maryland Live! Casino, broke ground last week on a $200 million, 310-room hotel ahead of the opening at National Harbor later this year of MGM Resorts International’s newest casino.
Maryland Live! owner The Cordish Cos. called the hotel “another significant step in the evolution of the Live! brand,” and industry analyst James Karmel of consultants Gaming Atlantic termed it “an acknowledgment that Maryland Live! plans to directly compete with (MGM) National Harbor for resort traffic”.
The 17-story hotel will encompass an events center, meetings space, a day spa/salon and an array of restaurants within its 350,000 square feet and is scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2018.
Maryland Live!, going on its fourth year of operations next to the popular Arundel Mills Mall in Hanover, has dominated the state in terms of gaming revenue, but experts say that could change once the $1.3 billion MGM National Harbor is up and running on the Potomac River in the affluent Washington, D.C.-Alexandria, Va. metro area.
“I think Maryland Live! has a very lucrative product as a regional, non-resort destination casino,” Karmel said. “It’s just a matter of trying to get some percentage of that overnight traffic.”
But MGM “is going to have a lot of advantages” in that area, he said—including a hotel of 300-plus rooms and suites and a 3,000-seat arena whose bookings will be overseen by Live Nation, the largest concert promoter in the world.
