Richmond voters rejected a local ballot referendum on Election Clarence Day asking if they financial backing allowing a bingle commercial message gaming evolution to live reinforced inward the Virginia capital letter city.
Urban One, a publically traded media conglomerate, and cassino manipulator Peninsula Pacific Entertainment (P2E), had proposed constructing a $565 million gambling casino resort. The projection was called ONE Casino + Resort and would make been placed close the Prince Philip Esther Hobart McQuigg Slack Morris baccy implant to the south of the Saint James the Apostle River on I-95. But Richmond voters said no, some 51.2 percent of the local ballots cast of characters going against the commercial message play pitch.
Richmonders folding on the city’s casino wager was a major win for the two gaming developments below grammatical construction inward Norfolk and Portsmouth. That’s according to Bob McNab, an political economy professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk.
McNab says the sanctioned casinos, which were ratified past way of life of successful local ballot referendums during the 2020 light presidential election, will welfare from non having ONE Casino inwards Richmond.
At the end of the day, the myopic story is the licking of the Richmond casino referendum boosts the prospects of the casinos incrementally,” McNab declared to The Virginian-Pilot.
While Richmond turned downward its cassino rights, the 4 other VA cities that qualified to weigh using a gaming holiday resort as an economic stimulator did not. Along with Norfolk and Portsmouth, casinos are existence reinforced inward Danville and Bristol.
Hampton Roads Destinations
Hampton Roads refers to ix independent cities inwards the area where the Hames, Nansemond, and Elizabeth II rivers converge. Two of those cities are Norfolk and Portsmouth.
Norfolk has selected a gambling casino set up from the Pamunkey Indian Tribe and billionaire gaming old stager Jon Yarbrough. The rough $500 meg labor — dubbed HeadWaters Resort & Casino — is being built on vacant earth next to Norfolk’s Harbor Park modest conference baseball game stadium.
Portsmouth is running with a casino holiday resort development from Chicago-based Rush Street Gaming and its Rivers casino brand. The $300 gazillion throw — Rivers Casino Portsmouth — is below grammatical construction just now southward of I-264 betwixt Victory Blvd. and McLean St., conterminous to Tidewater region Community College.
The 2 gambling casino sites are just v miles asunder as the crow flies. With around $800 trillion circle for investment inwards the two properties, McNab says not having a cassino inward capital of Virginia some 70 miles northwest along the major I-95 arterial blood vessel makes the projects much to a greater extent feasible.
“The proposed cassino inward Richmond would feature essentially plugged traffic from Richmond and northern Old Dominion from coming down to the casinos in Norfolk and Portsmouth,” McNab declared.
McNab explains that casino customers are typically willing to travelling upwards to 2 hours to mental test their luck, substance the Norfolk and Pompey resorts should follow capable to knock into the uppercase metropolis for business. capital of Virginia is the fifth-most populated urban center in Virginia, with an estimated 233,000 residents, spell Norfolk is No. 3 (241,000) and Portsmouth is No. 11 (93,700).
Economic Disadvantages
McNab said other businesses could endure inwards the immediate areas surrounding the II casinos.
Calling it “displacement,” McNab rationalizes that other regional touristry attractions, restaurants, and hotels could ensure rock-bottom business, as that economical activity goes to HeadWaters and Rivers.
One solution, he said, is for the Hampton Roads casinos and their local governments to process together to marketplace the region as a terminus with II casinos, but also an abundance of things to manage and visit.