Construction work on Philadelphia’s second casino is ready to begin, after Stadium Casino, the partnership between Baltimore’s Cordish Companies and Pennsylvania’s Greenwood Gaming, received permission from the city to raze the shuttered Holiday Inn at the 9-acre site of what will be the Stadium Casino Hotel.
The authorization to begin work on the project—located in the stadium district where the city’s professional sports teams play—comes two months after SugarHouse Casino dropped its legal challenge to the licensing of Stadium Casino. The position that businessman Watche “Bob” Manoukian’s stake in Greenwood Gaming would violate the restriction on multiple casino ownership in Pennsylvania’s 2004 gaming law became moot with the repeal of that restriction, part of the massive gaming expansion package signed into law by Governor Tom Wolf in November.
Construction will begin this year on a $600 million, 200,000-square-foot project including a casino with 2,200 slots. 150 table games, a 205-room hotel, five restaurants, nightclubs, and a parking garage.
A statement issued by Cordish Companies last week identifies the project for the first time as Stadium Casino, rather than its original name, Philadelphia Live!, which would have followed the brand of other Cordish attractions nationwide, including three casino and the Xfinity Live! dining and entertainment attraction in South Philadelphia.
Greenwood Gaming owns the Parx Casino at Philadelphia Park in Bensalem, which has consistently been Pennsylvania’s most profitable casino.
