A Gulfport Harbor casino has been 28 years in the making. Will it ever happen?
After 28 years, plans appear dead for a casino in Gulfport’s harbor.
The Gulfport Redevelopment Commission owns and manages city land, including four acres in the harbor. GRC had teamed up with two private property owners — MC Marine and Marine Life Ventures — to create an 11-acre site that twice won state approval for a casino and hotel.
But a saturated casino market and lack of interest from investors blew apart the casino deal they had put together, proposed developer Robert Lubin of Virginia recently told the Sun Herald.
MC Marine and Marine Life Ventures then bowed out of the 11-acre lease, and the Gulfport Redevelopment Commission (GRC) went its own way.
None of the three properties are large enough standing alone for a casino resort.
GRC’s next move perplexed the two private property owners and essentially cut off any prospect for another casino, they say.
The GRC’s four acres wound up in the hands of potential casino competitors Rick Carter and Terry Green, who own Island View Casino Resort less than a mile west of the harbor, land records show.
“We’re disappointed because the best and highest use of that land is a casino site,” said David Jones, a Gulfport attorney and Marine Life officer. “It was to everybody’s advantage and to Gulfport’s advantage to create the jobs and tax base, and it doesn’t seem like anything is going to come about at this point unless Island View pursues it.”
GRC leased the property to Carter Green Investments without advertising for development proposals, something the agency had done in the past and a requirement of state law. In this case, GRC was not legally obligated to advertise because Robert Lubin’s company assigned its interest in the lease to Carter Green.
Both Lubin’s lease assignment and GRC’s lease to Carter Green went into effect September 1, 2019, lease records show. Lubin originally secured the lease on the combined 11-acre parcel in early 2016 after submitting what GRC considered the best of three proposals, including one from Island View.
When Lubin gave up the lease, he told the Sun Herald, he recalls signing something, but he didn’t have the paperwork in front of him and couldn’t discuss it.
“I think I left it and I really don’t know what happened after that,” Lubin said. “I don’t know who has the lease now. I had nothing to do with it.”
What are casino owners’ plans?
Island View co-owner Rick Carter said a year of COVID-19 has left him with no immediate plans for the city property that he and Green are leasing. During the pandemic, the state shut down casinos for more than two months in the spring.
Carter said Carter Green Investments initially leased the property with the idea of developing a boutique hotel, but then he saw all the cars parked there during the city’s annual Christmas lights show, where Island View is a sponsor. However, the Christmas lights show was in its fifth year when Carter Green leased the property.
The city land he is leasing sits south of Jones Park and west side of the U.S. Coast Guard station without the direct waterfront access of both the Marine Life and MC Marine property.
COVID-19 further stalled any development plans, Carter said.
“When (the state) shut me down a year ago,” Carter said, “it got my attention and it scared me to death . . . We put everything on hold and just tried to weather the storm. We’re back and doing well. In the future, we will do something there. We’re just not sure when.”
He doesn’t foresee reassembling enough property for a second casino.
“I never say never,” Carter said, “But as of right now, this market can not afford another casino, in my opinion. All it’s going to do is cannibalize the other properties to be successful.”
Carter Green Investments is leasing the property GRC holds for the city for $200,000 a year, or about $16,670 a month.
In addition to rent payments, the lease requires Carter Green to donate the equivalent of $200,000 a year each to the Mississippi Aquarium and the Christmas lights show over 10 years, which will amount to a total of $4 million.
The initial lease runs for 10 years with two renewal options that would extend the lease an additional 20 years. The lease does not call for Carter Green to submit development plans until renewal in 2029. GRC must approve those plans.
Creative development proposal awaited
Gulfport has worked for decades to attract a casino to the harbor, with multiple developers, including Donald Trump, proposing plans.
GRC most recently took up the effort, but two casino development companies with long-term leases and site approval from the state have failed to find funding for their projects.
“It just never worked out,” GRC chair Carole Lynn Meadows said. “Maybe that was the right thing, in the long run. Maybe we weren’t supposed to have a casino down there after all.”
Meadows believes in the harbor property’s potential, especially with the addition of the Mississippi Aquarium across the highway and upcoming construction of an elevated bridge over U.S. 90 that will connect the harbor to the aquarium and downtown Gulfport.
Bids should go out by the end of the month for the bridge, which will accommodate pedestrians, bicycles, a tram and emergency vehicles. Project architect David Hardy said the bridge should be completed by the end of 2023.
“There’s got to be somebody who has the vision that can pull all that together and make it a spectacular destination for families,” she said. “It’s just there waiting for some really creative person to come along and say, ‘Now this is what you need to add.
“That will be the pop you really need. I get goose bumps just thinking we’re on the verge of making that whole area down there just absolutely a tourism destination.”
Two Gulfport harbor properties on market
Meanwhile, the owners of Marine Life Ventures and MC Marine have listed their properties for sale.
The vacant acreage sits on the harbor’s west side between the U.S. Coast Guard Station and Gulfport Yacht Club. Both properties have waterfront access and are popular fishing spots.
Mississippi South Realty has the 3.6-acre Marine Life property on the market for $3,950,000.
The 2.6-acre MC Marine property is listed for $4.5 million by Lenny Sawyer at NAI Sawyer Real Estate.
Walter “Cliff” Vick, who recently moved back to the Coast after working as a labor attorney near Washington, is an owner of the Marine Life property. His father, Walter “Peasy” Vick, co-founded the aquatic theme park in 1956 and Cliff Vick worked there, mostly during the summers while in college.
He had hoped to see a harbor casino replace Marine Life, destroyed in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. Now that the partnership between the city and two private property owners has ended, that’s no longer possible, he said.
“Really, the only place in Gulfport where a casino could have been put up was our property,” he said.
“That could have been a huge source of income and jobs.”
“We’re hoping that we can do something with the property. I have the closest lifetime affinity to that property. I grew up with it.”
This story was originally published May 21, 2021 at 5:50 AM.
