Jackpot Casino looking to move to Cambridge Red Deer Hotel and Conference Centre

“However, the current location has its challenges in sustaining the required level of entertainment, including the scarcity in amenities, such as a parking lot, (and) access to the Casino,” wrote Yammine. “O’Chiese Gaming Limited Partnership, the present owners of Jackpot Casino have been continuously assessing the feasibility to relocate Jackpot Casino to the Cambridge Hotel & Conference Centre since they acquired the previously named Sheraton Hotel in 2017. O’Chiese Gaming Limited Partnership has identified the need to relocate Jackpot Casino from its current downtown location to a better location in the city with a great potential to attract more visitors.”

“Furthermore,” added Yammine, “they will have the ability to target the travellers who regularly attend the business conferences, and to capture a fair market share in the city of Red Deer.”

He stated that strategically, having a complete entertainment amenity on the premises, will have a positive impact on local community with respect to new development, construction, job creations, and more taxation.

“The Cambridge Hotel & Conference Centre is amid a commercial district, with easy access from Highway 2 capturing travellers coming from Edmonton and Calgary,” he explained.

Yammine outlined several benefits in his post about what the relocation of Jackpot Casino would mean for Red Deer:

Increasing revenue for local charities;
New construction spending of $11,000,000;
New job creations for the Casino and the Hotel:
Ability to attract new conventions, tournaments and tourism business to the Red Deer market;
New supporting element for local businesses, such as local restaurants, retail stores and gas stations;
A complete entertainment venue at the Hotel Resort and Casino will entice and attract new visitors into the heart of the city of Red Deer.

Brenda Grande, Gaming Consultant for Jackpot Casino, says the current location has served them well, but they’ve simply outgrown it.

“We don’t have the parking that we need. People like to be able to park close and go into their business, especially seniors,” says Grande. “We just want to make a beautiful, bright, fantastic new casino for the whole city of Red Deer so that we can service the market properly. It’s just one business wanting to move — the exact same business, but in a different location.”

Yammine, meantime, also acknowledged a recent campaign of negativity towards Jackpot’s proposed relocation.

The campaign claims, “gambling is an addiction,” safety will decrease, that it’s too close to RDP, Westpark Middle School and École La Prairie, and that it would “likely” reduce property values.

Yammine suggested the campaign was placed by an Edmonton law firm and called their campaign, which also claims the plan is to create a First Nations urban reserve, a “groundless conspiracy.”

“O’Chiese First Nations and its businesses have long been and will continue to be an important contributor to the Red Deer community and its economy,” continued Yammine. “The O’Chiese Gaming Limited Partnership has made an application to AGLC and the City of Red Deer to relocate their existing charitable casino (Jackpot Casino) for 2.8 KM distance to Cambridge Hotel for a safer, better location along the city’s primary commercial corridor with ample parking lots to accommodate its customers.”

“Finally, O’Chiese’s goals and objectives are to create synergies between two of its businesses that they own in the City of Red Deer,” concluded Yammine. “Jackpot Casino is a strong advocate for safe and responsible gaming.”

Erin Stuart, Inspections and Licensing Manager, City of Red Deer, says the owners of the Jackpot Casino will require a development permit before any relocation can take place.

“We have been working with Jackpot to make sure we have all our Is dotted and Ts crossed,” she explains. “They’re currently in the process of working with the AGLC in regards to the licenses required from the province. But they will be applying for their development permit, and then subsequently, any permits that would be required for renovation.”

Stuart anticipates that development permit application to arrive in the next few weeks and estimates that process to take four to eight weeks, depending on if everything is captured within the application that the City needs.

“With this application, because it is a discretionary use, we will be doing a neighbourhood notification for landowners within 100 metres of the site,” shares Stuart. “We allow for the opportunity to comment and then depending on the comments we receive, we either do a development officer decision or the application would go before the Municipal Planning Commission (MPC) for consideration.”

Because the casino is a gambling establishment, Stuart notes a requirement that casino officials submit an impact statement.

“It would address things such as noise, and so based on whatever that impact statement potentially identifies, there may be requirements for noise abatement measures to be installed,” added Stuart. “There may be requirements for further improvement to onsite infrastructure, but without having the full details of what their plans look like, I can’t necessarily provide the specifics.”

by Sheldon Spackman

Jackpot Casino looking to move to Cambridge Red Deer Hotel and Conference Centre

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