Year in review: Another year, another Cedar Rapids casino fail

*This storyline was voted as one of the top storylines of 2017 by Gazette staff. Other top storylines include the debate over the defunding of Planned Parenthood, flood repair efforts and Iowa's opioid crisis among others.*

CEDAR RAPIDS - Cedar Rapids leaders saw their hopes for a local casino dashed for the second time in three years.

On Nov. 16, state regulators voted 3-2 to reject a casino license for Cedar Rapids - rejecting proposals from two development groups that envisioned three options for an urban casino.

The latest effort started in September 2016 when a $40 million 'boutique” casino called Wild Rose Cedar Rapids was proposed on First Avenue SE across from the DoubleTree Hotel in a new glass-sided building by Steve Emerson and Hunter Parks.

This spurred Peninsula Pacific, of Los Angeles, and the Cedar Rapids Development Group to put forth two choices in February at the deadline set by the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission.

The partnership resurrected a $165 million Cedar Crossing by the River along First Street SW and First Avenue West. This was identical to the proposal the commission rejected 4-1 in 2014.

The group also introduced a much smaller concept. The $105 million Cedar Crossing Central would go in a skydeck over the Fourth Street NE rail corridor and attach to the DoubleTree.

Those efforts failed once again as regulators pointed to a saturated market and predictions of heavy cannibalization of Riverside Casino & Golf Resort, among other existing facilities.

The Cedar Crossing group said it will try again in a couple of years. Wild Rose didn't reveal its intentions.

Still, Cedar Rapids officials have circled the land eyed for Cedar Crossing on the River - 8 acres near downtown - for redevelopment. That process is expected to begin in early 2018.