Cleveland gets 1st roll of casino dice in Ohio

Associated Press

CLEVELAND

Visitors to Ohio’s first casino won’t see glitzy Las Vegas-style stage shows but instead will get an invitation to gamble and then sample the attractions in blue-collar Cleveland.

The Horseshoe Casino Cleveland will open in late March on four floors of a renovated department store overlooking Public Square in the heart of downtown.

The casino will have 2,011 slot machines, 63 table games and a 30-table poker room.

Instead of offering in-house live entertainment, the casino will bet on drawing visitors who are also interested in other Cleveland attractions including its sports teams, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and its busy theater scene.

“Rather than saying, ‘Come to Horseshoe Cleveland’ and just come into the casino and stay the entire time, we’re actually connecting to the city,” the casino’s manager, Marcus Glover, said during a year-end construction tour interview.

“We’ll provide first-class amenities in terms of leveraging the amenities around us in the downtown corridor with the fine restaurants and hotels that are down here, as well as the venues and other attractions.”

The city likes the idea of an estimated 5 million annual casino visitors strolling through downtown to shop, eat and sample the attractions.

“It’s important for the casino not to be just an enclosed shrine to betting,” said Chris Warren, Cleveland’s chief of regional development.

With walkways and pedestrian tunnels linking the casino to the sports complex and Tower City retail-office complex, “you have a unique constellation of really high-visitor, high-marquee venues that will be connected,” he said.

Plans for the initial casino phase call for a buffet restaurant and a food court with three outlets. The casino eventually will expand to include a newly built casino overlooking smokestack industries along the serpentine Cuyahoga River.

By comparison, Caesars Palace Las Vegas has 14 places to eat, plus shops, a spa and high-end entertainment including Celine Dion during the New Year’s weekend.

The Cleveland casino and one planned for Cincinnati will be operated by a joint venture between Caesars Entertainment and Rock Gaming, run by Dan Gilbert, owner of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers and founder of Quicken Loans.

Quicken Loans Arena, home of the Cavaliers, is within sight of the casino and the Ritz-Carlton hotel, which the casino recently purchased, adding to Gilbert’s expanding footprint in Cleveland.

The initial casino phase may have a familiar look for movie buffs. It will be in the old Higbee building, which played a starring role in the 1983 film “A Christmas Story.” Planners have tried to preserve its retro look, right down to the original doors.

Two years ago, Ohio voters approved plans for four casinos, including locations in Columbus and Toledo to be run by Penn National Gaming.