If you're a poker fan you'll soon have 24-hour options in town, as Sugarhouse broke ground on its $154M expansion last month. The new expansion will more than double the square footage of the casino, and almost double the size of the gaming floor as well. That means almost new slots, new table games, and a dedicated poker room. We first told you about revised plans for the expansion last April right before they were scheduled to be reviewed by the State Gaming Board.
The expansion, designed by Cope Linder Architects, will occur north of the current site at Frankford & Delaware Ave. and is void of the hotel originally promised to be included during an expansion. It will include a multi-purpose room with waterfront views and a seven-story garage will abut the almost hotel looking exterior and add a little over five-hundred new spaces. There's also space for four new waterfront restaurants (two of which are already spoken for), and a reserved space for a ballroom complex with riverfront views that is scheduled for a later phase. A wedding or bar-mitzvah at Sugarhouse? Maybe some day.
For those with the itch, an interim poker room will open this fall and be built on the south side of the property so it players can bluff in peace during construction. The poker room itself is a $2.9M investment expected to generate $1.8M in taxes for the City and State, according to Sugarhouse. Apparently, Sugarhouse gamers have been pining for a poker room, and the casino is making their dreams come true. Visitors to the casino were also looking for more amenities at the facility, hence the new restaurants and the exhibition space.
Sugarhouse has tried to meet the public by hosting events like Sugarbeach, and as part of the expansion the river walk will grow 250 ft. That's all well and good- now we're left wondering whether that planned hotel will ever make an appearance or whether it will fade away like our luck at the craps table.