Sugarcane Bay could come early (6/12)

Posted June 12, 2009 at 12:01 am
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By HECTOR SAN MIGUEL
AMERICAN PRESS

Dan Lee, chairman of Pinnacle Entertainment, said Thursday that he is confident his company can start work on the hotel and riverboat for the $407 million Sugarcane Bay casino-resort as early as August or September.

Lee told the American Press that the credit markets are looking much better and that the company can now secure the needed funding for the project.

“In a sense we already have started construction there with the utilities coming in, but on the building (hotel and riverboat casino) we are looking at August, maybe September,” he said.

The state Gaming Control Board in April granted Pinnacle a 150-day extension on its Sugarcane Bay and Baton Rouge projects. The extensions are good until October.

“I’m pretty sure we won’t want have to go back (to ask for another extension) unless the credit markets collapse again in the next few weeks,” Lee said.

He said Pinnacle is negotiating with two contractors about the Sugarcane Bay project: Manhattan Construction of Houston and Yates Construction of Mississippi. Manhattan built the L’Auberge resort. Yates is building a casino complex for Pinnacle in St. Louis, Mo.

“We are going to go with the contractor that gives us the best terms. The fact that the credit markets were kind of slow allowed us to get working drawings out to contractors to get a firm bid,” Lee said.

“When we built L’Auberge we didn’t do that. We kind of fast-tracked it, but now we can take a lot of the risk out of it by getting bids from contractors. Both the contractors and subcontractors could use the work these days, so I’m hoping we can get some good pricing.”

The company has done some preparatory work for Sugarcane Bay, including the widening of the entrance road to the resort site and L’Auberge du Lac, which stands next door.

Pinnacle in March announced it was expanding the Sugarcane Bay project by $57 million to include a 3,000-seat entertainment arena and three boathouse suites. The arena will reportedly be built at the same time as the 400-room hotel complex and riverboat casino.

Pinnacle has spent $45 million on the Sugarcane Bay project, with $26 million more already approved by the company’s board of directors.

Lee said Thursday that Pinnacle will probably begin moving again on its proposed Baton Rouge property.

“We have more entitlement and design work to do there,” he said. “It won’t be simultaneous. We are going to go ahead with it. It’s about six months to a year behind Sugarcane Bay and kind of in the development process.”

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