Petersburg is an historic town in Virginia, and slowly but surely its moving toward a more modern casino age. (Image: Ian Dagnall / Alamy)

The Virigina Lottery has officially certified Petersburg as a casino host city, moving the city one step closer towards its goal of building an entertainment complex in partnership with The Cordish Companies and Bruce Smith Enterprises. 

The approval of the city’s paperwork, given in a July 9 letter to Petersburg City Manager March Altman and City Attorney Tony Williams, leaves only two hurdles between the city and its casino ambitions.

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City Will Seek Court Approval for Referendum

First, Petersburg will need to have the Petersburg Circuit Court also agree that the city is ready to proceed to a local referendum on the casino, which would be on the ballot for the general election on Nov. 5. 

The Petersburg City Council has scheduled a special meeting for Monday morning, during which it will officially pass a resolution asking for the court to approve the referendum. Presuming that approval comes, the last step will be getting the approval of local voters for the casino project.

The letter from the Virginia Lottery notes that the Petersburg casino complex will be known as Live! Casino & Hotel Virginia. That would be in concert with the existing Cordish brand used for casinos in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. 

The companies involved in the proposal have created a new limited liability company to operate the Petersburg casino, known as PPE Casino Resorts Petersburg, LLC (PPE). According to the state lottery’s letter, PPE owns the entirety of Live! Virginia, and is a partnership between Virginians Inspire Petersburg (an affiliate of Bruce Smith Enterprise) and Petersburg Community Development Holdings I (a Cordish affiliate).

The letter notes that PPE expects to finance as much as half of the casino complex with a loan from M&T Bank. However, PPE has also said that it can afford to fund the entire $597 million proposal internally if necessary. The facility, which will include a casino, hotel and entertainment complex on 92 acres of land on Brassfield Parkway in south Petersburg, will be built in two phases, beginning with an interim casino that should open within a year of the referendum, should voters approve the project.

Petersburg Casino Process Mired in Controversy

The Petersburg casino proposal has not been without controversy. The procedure through which the Petersburg City Council ultimately chose Cordish as its developer of choice has come under scrutiny, as the council made a surprise decision to pick the company during a closed session of a meeting in April. 

That led to back-and-forth accusations between Petersburg city officials and Virginia legislators over accusations of political pressure and a lack of transparency related to both the legislature’s vote to allow Petersburg to become a casino host, and the city’s decision to pick Cordish. Much of that controversy centers on a letter signed by Petersburg City Manager March Altman a week before the fateful city council meeting, one that identifies Bally’s as the city’s preferred casino partner.

The Virginia Lottery appears to slyly reference the controversy over how Petersburg chose a developer in a footnote on the first page of its July 9 letter to the city.

“The Department has no statutory or regulatory authority to assess the process by which the City chose PPE as its preferred casino gaming operator, and this letter should in no way be construed as such an assessment,” the footnote reads.

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