In early November, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Benjamin Goldgar allowed Caesars Entertainment Corporation to sell most of the former Harrah’s Tunica casino complex in Mississippi to Clearwater, Florida-based TJM Properties for million. The Clearwater, Florida, company was the only bidder for hotels and associated buildings. Caesars spokeswoman Jan Jones Blackhurst said the sale should close by mid-January.
The sale will give TJM two hotels with more than 1,000 rooms, a convention center, golf course, shooting range, RV park and children’s arcade. TJM Director of Operations and Acquisitions Matt McCarthy said, “Over the next few months, TJM will be deciding how to best reposition the property. Although the exact details are still being sorted out, TJM is considering both reopening the property or selling parcels to interested buyers.”
Harrah’s Tunica opened in 1996 as the Grand Casino Tunica. When Caesars closed Harrah’s in June 2014, about 1,000 employees were laid off. Caesars sill operates the Horseshoe Tunica Hotel & Casino and Tunica Roadhouse Casino & Hotel nearby.
Caesars tore down the former casino barge earlier this year but still leases land on the Mississippi River side of the levee from the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta Levee Board. A third 148-room hotel, part of the Harrah’s property that was not acquired by TJM, is on that property.
TJM has purchased two other casinos from Caesars, the nation’s largest casino operator which is trying to pay off $20 billion in debt. In 2013, TJM bought the Claridge in Atlantic City for $12.5 million and the Atlantic Club for $13.5 million. The company reopened the Claridge as a hotel and has been working on selling the Atlantic Club to a Pennsylvania developer who would add a water park and beach bar.
Owned by Terence J. McCarthy, TJM has a total of six hotels and four senior living centers. In 2013 it sold 15 senior living centers for $200 million to Fortress Investment Group. In 1992, the St. Petersburg Times exposed McCarthy for buying cheap houses, reselling them at inflated prices and helping buyers secure government-backed mortgages with fake down payments. McCarthy pleaded guilty to two counts of helping to falsify loan applications. He was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay $100,000 in restitution, according to local news media accounts.
