The Rideau Carleton Raceway and the Hard Rock Casino in Ottawa, Canada is proposing a $318 million expansion that would include an eight-story hotel, concert hall that could seat 2,500 and 20 more table games. A steakhouse able to seat 150 is also planned. The project would be financed entirely by private money.
It would be built on 40 hectares (nearly 99 acres) on the raceway property.
The Hard Rock Live concert venue, if approved by the city of Ottawa, would seek to create an entertainment district in the south part of the city on a separate 160 hectares.
When done the casino would have 55 tables and 2,000 slots, aiming to compete for the gaming market that now goes to Quebec to play. The exact number of slots will be decided by the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp (OLG)
“The benefits to the local community if we repatriate that money is obvious,” Andrew Wright, director of the Rideau Carleton/Hard Rock joint venture, told CBS News.
The partners hope to begin building next year. Plans have already been submitted to the city. Some rezoning will be needed.
Hard Rock, when was criticized last year for not seeking council approval for adding more tables, has promised a more open process for the new expansion.
Wright said, “It’s going to be a very open book consultation process because without that we’re not going to get the support. We want to be building what people want.” The first such meeting will be held March 7.
Wright says he hopes the new facility will rate getting a rail spur from the O-Train Trillium Line which will go from city to the Ottawa International Airport.
“If we’re putting our city planning hats on, with the amount of property that we have and all of a sudden that could be a commuter site into downtown and it would be a big parking lot,” Wright said during an interview with the Ottawa Citizen.
Ottawa council members have been very critical of the fact that cap on the number of slots that the city adopted was no longer in force. The OLG increased the number of allowed slots without consulting the city, they say.
In 2013 the city adopted a slots limit of 1,250 but has been told that it will be raised to 2,000.
Councilor Diane Deans said last week, “It’s frustrating because that should have been disclosed to council in a very open and forthright way. We were all told at the time that this was just pro forma, what we did last September, that we just need to confirm what we had already done.”
In September the council voted to reaffirm the raceway as the city’s approved gaming site, with Hard Rock operating the casino. OLG later told the council that its vote was also approval of raising the number of slots.
“It was news to me,” Councilor David Chernushenko told the Ottawa Citizen. “There was certainly no decision made that we would lift or remove the cap.”
