PHILADELPHIA—Company and city officials hoisted ceremonial shovels Tuesday for the long-planned $164-million expansion of SugarHouse Casino. A SugarHouse-themed backhoe rolled onto the site especially for Tuesday's ceremony, joining a fleet of logo-ed vehicles that already includes trolleys and a double-decker bus.
“I can honestly say I can't believe it's finally here,” Greg Carlin, chief executive of SugarHouse, said before Tuesday's groundbreaking, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “There is currently too much gaming capacity in the Northeast, but we made a promise to Philadelphia that one day we would expand and make SugarHouse Casino bigger and much better.”
Slated for a 2015 opening, the expansion will more than double the size of the casino on Philadelphia's Delaware River waterfront from its present 108,000 square feet to about 260,000 square feet. Although the casino area will grow from its present 50,000 square feet to 85,000, most of the new space will be used for non-gambling purposes, including new restaurants.
The Inquirer quoted Carlin as saying that in order to pay for the expansion, SugarHouse refinanced its debt about a year ago, and now has $260 million in bonds outstanding and a $125-million revolving credit facility it will use to pay construction costs. SugarHouse employs 1,100; the expansion will add 500 permanent positions as well as 1,600 construction jobs.
© Touchpoint Markets, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to asset-and-logo-licensing@alm.com. For more inforrmation visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
