(CelebrityAccess MediaWire) —
Pinnacle Entertainment, Inc. broke ground on Nov. 8 on its casino, hotel and entertainment district in the St. Louis County community of Lemay. The $375 million development is one of the most ambitious developments in the St. Louis area and will create a multi-faceted destination resort in St. Louis County.
Pinnacle's site straddles the frontier between the County and the City of St. Louis. Overlooking the Mississippi River, the site rests just south of the confluence of the Mississippi and the River des Peres in one of the most densely populated parts of the St. Louis region. St. Louis is the nation's 18th largest metropolitan area.
The project will open in 2008 and will include a large casino with 3,000 slot machines and 60 table games, a 100-room hotel, full-service spa, restaurants, a boutique bowling alley, a multiplex movie theatre, an indoor ice rink, a public park with athletic fields and a hatch-shell music and entertainment venue. A later phase is planned to include an approximately 280,000-square-foot retail center. Pinnacle will also build a multi-million dollar community center in Lemay.
The project is estimated to create 7,000 jobs: 1,000 construction jobs, 2,000 permanent jobs, and an additional 4,000 ancillary service jobs in the region.
The name of the St. Louis County project River City Casino & Hotel reflects the excitement that the property will entail and the location astride two important and historical rivers.
"We are very excited to begin work on River City," said Daniel R. Lee, chairman and CEO of Pinnacle Entertainment. "This project will be an important part of our company in the years to come. It will truly be a destination, a city unto itself, offering a wider array of entertainment amenities than any other single venue in the region.
"The community of Lemay has been enthusiastic about our project from the beginning of the selection process here in Missouri, and we will build something of which they, and all of St. Louis, can be proud."
St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley noted the importance of the project to the Lemay area, and the broader St. Louis economy. "Pinnacle's River City project will truly be a unique destination in our region and will create jobs and vital economic activity in Lemay," Dooley said. "More than that, the birth of River City means the environmental clean-up of a long-abandoned industrial site, and the creation of a new and long-needed road in the County, connecting Interstate 55 with the South Broadway corridor which will spur even more economic development in both the County and City of St. Louis.
"The River City groundbreaking signals a new day for Lemay and South County, and we are very pleased to have Pinnacle Entertainment as the County's newest corporate neighbor." –Jane Cohen and Bob Grossweiner
