A Proposed Riverboat Casino is Presented at Rockaway Beach
The Community Center of Rockaway Beach Thursday night, August 10th was full of people to witness the presentation of the lone company that submited a proposal to build a riverboat casino in the town of 600. Detroit-based Barden Development Inc is the only developer that offered the city the riverboat casino. But despite this, the city officials still wanted to make sure that the riverboat casino is the right company for Rockaway Beach.
City's Gaming Attorney Doug Stone said, "The board of aldermen and the gaming committee feel they have a duty to make sure that even though we received one reply, that it's a party that they want to do business with, and will be a good partner for the city as we move forward with this."
Rockaway Beach surely caught the eyes of Steve Lemberg, the vice president of the developer group. They have already owned five casinos across the nation. He said, "With what's going on in neighboring Branson, with the number of people who live within a 50-100 miles radius, and with all the other things going on in this area, we think this is a viable project."
The company of Lemberg has said they plan to build a "sizable middle-market casino" that is a perfect fit for the town.
Lemberg said, "We are not looking to build a palace and it would not be our intention to build a palace here in Rockaway Beach. We are talking about a safe, clean, comfortable environment. We do not tolerate anything else."
"People have to feel safe when they come to a casino, people have to feel comfortable. You have to know when you're walking from the casino to your car that you're not worried about things, and we have achieved that at all of our casino."
The budget for the casino in Rockaway Beach would be at $144 million. The size of the planned casino is close to the company's Tunica location size, about 57,000 feet of gaming space, over 1,300 slot machines, over 40 table games and 2,100 parking spaces.
About 800 to 900 new permanent jobs will be provided and a $28.6 to 34.3 million in tax revenue would also be generated by the casino in a year for Missouri and $6.3 to 7.6 million a year tax revenue for Rockaway Beach and Taney County.
