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As Casinos Come to Arkansas, All Ships Look for LiftLock Icon

5 min read

Jim Shamburger has a front-row seat to anything that happens at Oaklawn Racing & Gaming in Hot Springs.

Shamburger owns the Best Western Winner Circle Inn just across the street from the racetrack. When Oaklawn announced in mid-November its plans for a $100 million expansion on site to include a 200-room hotel, an 28,000-SF casino and a 14,000-SF events center, Shamburger couldn’t have been happier.

Tourism isn’t retail, where buying bread and toilet paper from one outlet keeps business from another. Tourism is a rising-tide-lifts-all-ships industry, Shamburger said, where more things to do means more people coming to enjoy them and creating paying customers for everyone.

“It absolutely is a [rising tide],” Shamburger said. “It’s great for the community, not just the hotel community but the entire community, the business community, everybody. It is going to have a tremendous impact on the whole area.

“With the expansion of the casino they are going to draw more than enough people to take care of that hotel and a lot of other people, too. That multipurpose facility is going to draw conventions and music events, and it will add room nights to the market at a tremendous level.”

State voters approved Arkansas Issue 4 (now Amendment 100) in November to allow casino gambling in four Arkansas counties, including Garland County, where Oaklawn is located. Shortly after the vote, Oaklawn announced its expansion plans.

“If it is going to affect anybody, it will affect me the worst,” Shamburger said. “I’m excited about it.”

Shamburger’s Best Western has 120 rooms, and he said he does pretty good business year-round. Racing season, which runs from late winter to late spring at Oaklawn, is especially good.

“I’m not looking to expand right now,” Shamburger said. “I have plenty of land to expand if I decide to do it at a later date. Right now, I’m going to take care of what I’ve got.”

‘Hospitality a Cornerstone’
The voter-approved amendment also allowed for a casino in Jefferson County. The Quapaw tribe announced its plan for a $350 million Saracen Casino Resort complex on 300 acres just east of The Pines Mall in south Pine Bluff.

The 1,000 expected jobs created by the casino would make it one of the city’s largest employers. Hotel owners hope the tourism dollars will create momentum for the city’s resurgence.

Tom Reilley is a board member of the nonprofit Pine Bluff Rising, which bought the historic Hotel Pines in downtown Pine Bluff for $1 in 2017. The group has announced a $35 million renovation plan for the seven-story, 105,000-SF hotel, which had been a crumbling mess since 1970.

The hotel project was designed and planned before the casino’s approval, and the Hotel Pines would be a foundational piece for the city’s downtown renewal. Reilley stressed that the hotel is one piece, as is the new casino.

“The Hotel Pines is certainly a contributing project in the ongoing efforts to revitalize downtown Pine Bluff. However, the success of a city never rests on a single project or initiative,” Reilley, a New Hampshire businessman who opened a $229 million wood pellet manufacturing plant in Pine Bluff in 2016, said in an email to Arkansas Business.

Reilley said the project is making good progress and he hopes the new Hotel Pines will be ready in time for the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff’s homecoming in 2021. The Saracen Casino is expected to open later this year.

“Hospitality — a central part of Arkansas’ charm and a signature asset of the Delta — is a cornerstone of any good economic development strategy,” said Reilley, who formed Catalytic Management LLC and is trying to create a $100 million equity fund for Arkansas projects.

“We are working hard to ensure the Hotel Pines is a contributing asset to Pine Bluff’s welcoming spirit and adds to the city’s bottom line to support good schools, roads and other city needs. While there are a lot of big projects happening in the city, like the new aquatics center, the new library, the casino and the new hospital, it is the collective effort of Pine Bluff citizens that will ensure these revitalization efforts are successful. We can’t speak to the casino’s business plan, but we hope the expected tourist draw is significant.”

Everything’s Coming Together
Tourism success is nothing new in Hot Springs, which is the state’s No. 1 tourist destination.

Oaklawn gets a lot of attention with its horse racing, but the city also has other attractions, including lakes, an amusement park and Hot Springs National Park. Shamburger said that as good as Oaklawn is for Hot Springs tourism, the summer, well after racing season is over, is also a hot time for tourism.

Steve Arrison, the CEO of Visit Hot Springs, said the city had two new hotels open in 2018 that created another 180 rooms. Hot Springs Mayor Pat McCabe is turning a bathhouse into a nine-room bed and breakfast and two downtown hotels have either been sold or are about to be, Arrison said.

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Like Pine Bluff, Little Rock and the four main cities of northwest Arkansas, Hot Springs has turned its attention to downtown revitalization. The Arlington Hotel Resort & Spa, a downtown landmark, announced a $50 million renovation plan last year.

Alan Mills, the general manager of the Arlington, declined to comment for this article. Arrison said downtown Hot Springs was kind of forgotten by investors until the Majestic Hotel caught fire in 2014 and was later torn down.

“After the Majestic fire, everything started to jell around here,” Arrison said. “Things started to happen. There is a lot of business downtown.”

The casino should just add to that momentum, Arrison said.

“It is one of the largest tourism investments in the history of Arkansas,” Arrison said. “That is going to help everybody. It is great for our community. We’re lucky. We have Oaklawn so we have a great racing season nobody else has.

“Everything is feeding each other. It’s the chicken and the egg. You have to have hotel rooms before people can come. We had a lot of hotel rooms, but they weren’t quality hotel rooms. Now they are good quality hotel rooms.”

Arrison, sounding Reilley’s theme that many pieces working together lead to success, said the casino will add a big piece to Hot Springs’ tourism offerings.

“Business here continues to improve,” Arrison said. “We have a lot of new product coming into the market, and we have a lot of old product that is stepping up and doing what it takes to remain competitive.

“We are getting close to having a full deck of cards.”

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