State regulators to hear 3 Cedar Rapids casino presentations Thursday

Three applicants vying for a gambling license for a casino in downtown Cedar Rapids are slated to pitch their ideas to state casino regulators on Thursday.

The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission meets at 8:30 a.m. at the Prairie Meadows Hotel, Bishop B meeting room, 1 Prairie Meadows Dr., in Altoona. The presentations are the No. 8 item on the agenda.

'Typically, each applicant will receive approximately 45 minutes for their presentation,” said Brian Ohorilko, administrator of the commission. 'The chairman will decide whether or not to keep a hard or soft clock, but historically the presentations have been a bit shorter than this time.”

On the table are three proposals from two groups. The proposals are for the $40 million Wild Rose Cedar Rapids, and two choices from the Cedar Rapids Development Group-Peninsula Pacific Partnership: the $105 million Cedar Crossing Central and the $165 million Cedar Crossing on the River.

Wild Rose Cedar Rapids and Cedar Crossing Central are plotted on First Avenue E across from each other near the DoubleTree Hotel, and Cedar Crossing on the River is virtually identical to a proposal along the west bank of the Cedar River, which the five-member commission rejected by a 4-1 vote in April 2014.

The Cedar Rapids Development Group has requested to consolidate its two presentations, Ohorilko said.

The presentations come days after the release of annual gambling revenues, which showed modest overall revenue gains for Iowa's 19 state licensed casinos, but a dozen casinos that posted year-over-year declines. Upgrades to Quad-City facilities drove much of the growth.

In total, casinos licensed by the commission took in nearly $1.45 billion for the 12 months that ended June 30 - a roughly 1 percent increase of more than $15.7 million over the previous year, but still below the record nearly $1.47 billion in adjusted gross revenue in fiscal 2012.

Threat of revenue cannibalization undermined the 2014 Cedar Crossing proposal, although that same summer the panel approved a casino for Wild Rose in Jefferson.

The Racing and Gaming Commission plans to make a final decision on whether to grant any of the license requests or none at all at its Nov. 16 meeting in Dubuque.

l Comments: (319) 339-3177; brian.morelli@thegazette.com