Restaurant betting on success in casino bid showcased at Bet at USA

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Top > News > 2005 > November > 16 Nov 2005

Restaurant betting on success in casino bid

Planet Hollywood is known more for their entertainment memorabilia (and financial problems) than their gambling prowess, but that isn’t stopping the restaurant chain started by such Hollywood personalities as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone from seeking to become owners of a casino should the Philadelphia Gaming Control Board. Planet Hollywood USA submitted plans last week for a $380 million dollar casino on the northern Delaware River riverfront. The plan could be conceivably approved as the Philadelphia Gaming Advisory Task Force, in a recent report, came out in favor of the potential site of the Planet Hollywood casino.

After examining 11 potential sites for a casino in the Philadelphia area, the report concluded that a 2.8-acre site at Eighth and Market streets provides “inadequate space” and that Penn's Landing, which was under consideration for a casino site, should serve “higher and better uses.” The many groups contributing proposals for the to-be-built casino are hoping, along with city officials, that a new casino will add to the structural beauty of the city. Donovan Rypkema, with PennDesign, said that the new casinos could be valuable architectural contributions to the city, but qualified that by saying that most casinos are not. “Most casino buildings outside of Vegas or Atlantic City are like 14-carat cubic zirconium,” he said. “They're huge, but they're just crappy.”

While Planet Hollywood is betting that their proposal will be accepted, there was still a major player who had yet to submit an idea: Trump Entertainment Resorts, Inc. Plans are being accepted until December 28, 2005, and the Gaming board of Philadelphia agreed to wait until all plans were in until making a final decision. Gaming Advisory Task Force director Micah Mahjoubian “We first have to wait and see what the proposals are, and the city should evaluate each of the proposals when they come out.You could have a bad location with a really good proposal, or you could have a really good location with a really bad plan.”