Gluba, aldermen still not pleased with casino plan
Operators of Davenport’s Rhythm City riverboat casino are willing to start work immediately to transform it to a Lady Luck casino, but they may face an uphill battle getting support from Davenport elected officials.
Isle of Capri Chief Operating Officer Virginia McDowell, who was in Davenport Wednesday with other IOC executives to meet with business and city leaders, said the project would “be of great value to the community. We are trying to do what is best for our shareholders, our employees and the communities we operate in.”
The “complete transformation” of the riverboat would include a remodeled exterior and a redesigned interior, McDowell said. Davenport would become the flagship of the Isle’s resurrected Lady Luck brand. Other company properties that will carry the Lady Luck brand are located in Caruthersville, Mo., Marquette, Iowa, and Lula, Miss.
Meanwhile, Isle of Capri has promised to invest millions into its casino in Bettendorf to keep it among the companies top tier sites.
Mary Ellen Chamberlin,
executive director of the Riverboat Development Authority who sat in on the meetings, said IOC officials promised a $9 million make-over of the riverboat.
“It would be like a new casino,” Chamberlin said. “In an ideal world, maybe it’s not the best we could get, but the reality of the situation is that it’s not a bad offer. I’ve not seen any income projections, but I don’t find anything they want to do to be objectionable.”
Davenport Mayor Bill Gluba and three aldermen who met with McDowell walked away from the meeting unimpressed.
“I see it as not much more than putting lipstick on a pig,” Gluba said. “And we don’t want a pig with lipstick. We want a princess.”
The Davenport City Council has met in closed session several times in recent weeks to discuss a possible legal strategy to force the casino company to live up to its 2005 development agreement that called for $43 million in investment downtown. Gluba said multiple options — including legal action — remain on the table, adding that he feels there is consensus among aldermen that the proposed $9 million in investment is not enough.
By comparison, Gluba said Isle officials have pledged to invest $145 million in the Bettendorf property.
“We feel like we’ve got a lot of options,” Gluba said. “We haven’t been sitting idly by these past months.”
Gluba declined to elaborate on those options, but said the city’s ultimate strategy will likely be evident in the next 30 days or so.
During a morning session with DavenportOne, business leaders heard from McDowell and other company executives about the dynamics of the casino business and how decisions on investment in its properties are made, said Tara Barney, DavenportOne’s president and chief executive officer.
In the case of Davenport and Bettendorf, the Isle owns the land that its Bettendorf hotels, parking ramps and other amenities are located on, Barney said. “That makes the cost of investing there more favorable,” she said.
In Davenport, the Isle doesn’t own its riverfront site, Barney said. Instead, it leases land for parking and other amenities from the city. In 2005, the company signed an agreement with Davenport to spend $43 million to build a new riverfront hotel and parking ramps on city-owned land closer to Lock and Dam 15, but that plan was abandoned.
An Isle proposal last year to relocate the casino to the southern hall of the city-owned RiverCenter also was abandoned after aldermen asked for $2 million per year in annual rent. That plan drew strong opposition from many in the community who didn’t want to see the convention hall turned into a gaming facility.
Moving the gaming complex was part of Davenport’s plan to remake the city’s waterfront under its River Vision riverfront redevelopment plan. It calls for adding more green space and public amenities at the public waterfront and for removal of parking and asphalt.
The city has also been anxious to use investment by the Isle in its Davenport casino as part of a local match to leverage a state grant that would help jump start the River Vision plan.
During the meeting sponsored by DavenportOne, Barney said participants made it clear that whatever the Isle does to renovate the casino, it should help advance the River Vision plan and redevelopment in the downtown.
“They wanted to see integration of the riverfront into the downtown, they wanted to see less riverfront parking rather than more and they wanted to see good design to integrate (the casino) into the buildings that we already have downtown,” Barney said.
Third Ward Alderman Bill Boom — who attended the meeting with Gluba and aldermen Ian Frink, at-large and Shawn Hamerlinck, 2nd Ward — said although the message from the company wasn’t what city leaders wanted to hear, actually talking face-to-face is a step in the right direction.
“Until today, we’d never even heard the $9 million number,” he said. “We will digest what we heard from the Isle of Capri and they will digest what they heard from us.”
Gluba said it is the council’s responsibility to taxpayers to fight against relegation to “poor relation” casino status.
“They would make Davenport a second tier, local facility and not a regional facility and we don’t think that’s fair, since as recently as two years ago they committed to spend $43 million,” he said.
Boom and Gluba hinted that the next move is up to Isle officials.
“Politics is the art of compromise and $9 million is not $43 million,” Gluba said. “The ball is in their court.”
Tory Brecht can be contacted at (563) 2329 or tbrecht@qctimes.com. Tom Saul can be contacted at (563) 383-2453 or tsaul@qctimes.com.