Regulators could visit proposed Cedar Rapids casino sites in September

CEDAR RAPIDS - Iowa gambling regulators could visit the three proposed urban casino sites in downtown Cedar Rapids this September if the panel adopts the fiscal 2018 meeting schedule on Thursday.

On the proposed fiscal 2018 schedule, which runs from July 13, 2017, to June 14, 2018, the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission would convene in Cedar Rapids on Sept. 26. There, they'd have the site visits and also hold public comment sessions.

'The site visit and public comment period, all of those have been handled locally, so that would be in Cedar Rapids,” said Brian Ohorilko, commission administrator.

On the table are the $40 million Wild Rose Cedar Rapids, the $105 million Cedar Crossing Central and the $165 million Cedar Crossing on the River. The first two are plotted across First Avenue E from each other near the DoubleTree Hotel, and the latter 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 commission is scheduled to consider the fiscal 2018 meeting schedule, formalize a timeline to vet the gambling license requests for Linn County, and select one or more vendors to conduct market studies tied to the applications, during a meeting beginning at 8:30 a.m. Thursday at the Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs.

The site visits are the only assigned dates at this point in the Linn County gambling license process. In the months ahead, the commission is to receive the market study results, hear presentations from the applicants and the Division of Criminal Investigation, which is conducting background checks on the applicants, and, at the end, make a ruling on whether to grant a gaming license.

'I would expect a brief announcement assigning those steps to the meeting dates,” Ohorilko said. 'The goal is to try to limit the number of special meetings.”

Ohorilko has said he anticipates a decision in November. The November meeting is proposed for Nov. 16 at Diamond Jo Casino in Dubuque.

The commission also is scheduled to select one or more of six vendors who applied to conduct market studies based on the casino applications. The studies should reveal how much each casino would cannibalize revenue from Iowa's other casinos. Heavy cannibalization numbers in the studies doomed the 2014 Cedar Crossing plan.

Applicants - White Sand Gaming, of Atlantic City, N.J.; Annex Analytics, of Cedar Rapids; Strategic Economic Group, of West Des Moines; Union Gaming, of Las Vegas; Marquette Advisors, of Minneapolis; and Spectrum Gaming Group, of Linwood, N.J. - all delivered short presentations at last month's Racing & Gaming Commission meeting in Altoona.

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