Biloxi-Gulfport And Tunica Lay Plans For Major Center Expansions

Efforts are underway in Mississippi to enhance two convention facilities, and compliment the already potent array of casino meeting hotels there.

Voters in the Biloxi area will decide in November whether to expand the Mississippi Coast Coliseum and Convention Center, to supplement the dramatic upgrades going on with the Gulf Coast's meetings hotels. Meanwhile, county officials in Tunica will spend the next six months studying whether to build a publicly funded convention center. However, a proposed private project — a new casino hotel with a 375,000-square-foot conference center — could take a public center out of the community's game plan for the next few years.

First, Biloxi: The November referendum, if passed, would raise the hotel tax in Harrison County, which includes Gulfport and Biloxi, by an additional two cents on the dollar. The planned $63 million construction program that would result would more than double the amount of rentable space at the Coliseum, adding about 200,000 net square feet to the current 180,000 square feet.

Jim Haskins of Oklahoma City-based Wholesale Markets Inc., who has been conducting trade shows at the facility for the past 10 years, said more space would doubtless attract bigger events.

"Our show has consistently grown over the years because the Gulf Coast is a very attractive destination," he said. "It's easy to see that if more space were added, there would be demand for it."

A recent upturn in the casino hotel industry has created a new momentum in the area.

Currently under construction is the $235 million, 306-room Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hotel Biloxi, set to open in the summer of 2005. The hotel complex will include a 50,000-square-foot casino and a 1,500-seat showroom.

Next door is the city's largest hotel, the 1,740-room Beau Rivage Resort & Casino, which currently is undergoing a $32 million upgrade. The Beau Rivage recently completed a $10 million refurbishment of its suites and a $3 million restaurant upgrade. It also is scheduled to open a Tom Fazio-designed golf course late next year.

And the Isle of Capri Casino is in the midst of a whopping $79 million expansion that includes construction of a 400-room hotel tower, plus a 12,000-square-foot expansion of its conference center, which will give the resort about 22,000 square feet of function space. The resort also will add a Caribbean-themed restaurant, a rum bar, and a new swimming pool and spa.

As for Tunica, while a publicly financed convention center could significantly increase the meeting space inventory there, a $523 million casino hotel planned by a Canadian developer Myriad World Resorts may preempt it. The project, which would include a 1,200-room hotel, an 80,000-square-foot casino and a five-acre water park, was approved in June by the Mississippi Gaming Commission.

The developer is now in the fund-raising stage, so construction of the hotel is not yet a certainty.