MARY PEREZ/SUN HERALDRotate Black MS LLC's Hemingway Resort and Casino, seen in this rendering, failed to meet a Tuesday deadline to close on its financing.
GULFPORT -- Hemingway Resort and Casino developers scurried until Tuesday's 5 p.m. deadline but weren't able to complete the financing for the resort at the Gulfport Harbor.
"The time has come and gone," Allen Godfrey, executive director of the Mississippi Gaming Commission, said late Tuesday afternoon, the second straight day of deadlines for proposed casinos in South Mississippi.
Just 24 hours earlier, developers of the Scarlet Pearl Casino in D'Iberville missed their 5 p.m. deadline for closing on the financing for a $250 million resort.
Rotate Black MS LLC has site approval for the Hemingway Casino on a 9½-acre site in Gulfport near U.S. 90 and U.S. 49. The project was approved for a $112 million casino by the state Gaming Commission on Dec. 30, one day before the deadline for the project under the former guidelines. Rotate Black said in a January press release the proposed resort was to be a $130 million development.
The resort would have been based on the life of au
thor Ernest Hemingway,
"A Hemingway or similar theme at the Gulfport Harbor is a viable project," John Hairston, chairman of the Mississippi Gaming Commission, said Tuesday evening, "I hope someone will step forward with the financial wherewithal to build a casino resort at this excellent site. The bulk of the work is already done and could easily be augmented to put forth a project compliant with the new regulations."
To meet the new guidelines, the casino floor would have to be increased by 5,000 square feet to 40,000 square feet and 95 hotel rooms would have to be added to comply with the 300-room requirement.
Those regulations were met by the proposed casino in D'Iberville.
"I support the Scarlet Pearl project," Hairston said. "Should they get their funding lined up as they committed to before we gave the last extension, I would be glad to call a special meeting or put them on a regular meeting agenda."
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