It will also sport an 800-seat venue for entertainment acts and concerts, several restaurants, a 60-room hotel and a 'backyard' park setting around a small lake that can hold 3,000 people.Ĭonstruction is set to begin in July and is set to be complete by July 2014. The winning Hard Rock proposal will see a casino with 800 slot machines and more than 200 gambling tables, Warner said. 'It has been really a wrenching decision.' 'I have never lost so much sleep,' Mertz said. All five commissioners expressed difficulty in coming to a decision.
Commissioners Greg Seyfer and Delores Mertz voted against awarding the license to the Hard Rock site, with Mertz earlier declaring the Ho Chunk proposal as her pick and Seyfer preferring Penn National's downtown proposal. 'We had no idea how it was going to go until they announced it.' 'Obviously, we're very happy with the decision,' said Bill Warner, president of Sioux City Entertainment and founder of the group's Las Vegas parent company, Warner Gaming.
It will be at the site of the historic Battery Building in downtown Sioux City. But Sioux City Entertainment's bid for the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino for $118.5 million was selected.
