Jay Snowden is shaking up suburban Chicago’s casino scene with a bet of his own on replacing old riverboats with new developments near retail centers.
Penn Entertainment, whose CEO is Snowden, is pitching moving the Hollywood Casino in Aurora closer to Interstate 88, and is eyeing a similar shift for another riverboat casino of the also named the Hollywood outside Joliet, which would also close and be reopened in a new building within the suburb, the Daily Herald reported.
Penn said it needs to close its downtown Aurora casino casino’s location downtown to rebuild for $360 million a new facility that will include 900 slot machines, 50 live table games and a sportsbook. In Joliet, the planned casino will be located in the Rock Run Crossings development near the interchange of interstates 80 and 55.
The repositioning efforts follow the state’s largest gambling expansion in history in 2019, which Penn opposed at the time. It bred a new wave of competition for Illinois casino operators, as it included the issuance of six new casino licenses, with three of them in the Chicago area that are now nearing construction. New casinos are coming to Waukegan, the Homewood-Flossmoor area in the south suburbs, and, most notably, Chicago, where Bally’s won city approval to build a $1.6 billion facility in the River West area.
The Aurora casino complex will also include a 200-room hotel with 10,000 square feet of meeting and event space, as well as bars, restaurants and a spa.
“Since the change in law to permit land-side casino relocation in Illinois, we have been exploring the viability of relocating our aging riverboats in Aurora and Joliet,” Jay Snowden, CEO and president of Penn Entertainment, said in a statement about the plans.
The Aurora casino will be built next to Chicago Premium Outlets on city-owned land near Farnsworth Avenue and Bilter Road. The city bought the land for $7 million in 2018 when two hotels stood on the site. The plans call for the city to donate the land and contribute up to $50 million in new bonds for the project.
The public will be able to comment on the plans at a city council finance committee meeting on Thursday. If approved, construction on the new casino would begin at the end of next year.
Aurora Alderman Emmanuel Llamas, who represents the 1st ward where the casino will rise, said that many of his constituents are against moving the casino to the Farnsworth site.
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— Victoria Pruitt