Making casinos open to the city

New Urban News Article with images, 12/1/2007

The prevailing concept of a casino — a windowless place closed off from its surroundings — is under assault in Mississippi. The Mississippi Renewal Forum urged that casinos on the Gulf Coast be rebuilt to a new standard as part of the recovery from Hurricane Katrina. Instead of being designed to keep visitors indoors from the time they arrive until they head home with empty pockets, casinos would be integrated into their cities or towns.

Until the Aug. 29 hurricane, Biloxi, the gambling capital of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, had nine casinos with a total of 14,000 employees, all built in the past 13 years. The state mandated that they stay offshore, which in practice meant that most were on barges permanently placed on the edge of the Gulf. A massive surge of water during the hurricane tossed some of the casinos considerable distances onto land, which wrecked them and caused state officials to conclude that casinos would probably be better off if they were planted on terra firma to begin with.

The question is whether “land-based” casinos will be good neighbors. In October the state legislature gave permission for the casinos to be rebuilt as far as 800 feet from the water — positioning them where it’s conceivable that they could end up dominating more of their communities than before. Planning teams in the Forum looked at how the casinos and their hotels and parking facilities could be designed to complement neighborhoods, harbor areas, or downtowns.