The plan is grand, the potential is great, but a nearly $1 billion casino and resort is a big, big undertaking.
What would surely be the largest entertainment venue in Mississippi is being proposed for construction along the Mississippi River just outside Tunica. Located two miles south of the Hollywood Casino, Myriad World Resorts of Tunica has leased property from landowner Jack Day Perry Sr. for the development.
“It’s 540 acres behind the levee,” said Tunica resident Perry, whose family moved into the county in 1900. The tract has been in the family for about 80 years.
Perry said the land is planted in cotton, leased to a local farmer.
“This is a better deal,” Perry said of his Myriad agreement. He wouldn’t disclose the terms of the casino lease, other than to classify it “long-term.”
According to Perry, the Myriad folks had been looking at potential sites for the resort almost two years.
“This came along pretty fast,” said Perry. “It’s been a pretty exciting time. We think it’s going to happen.”
Nothing is set in stone, however.
In June, Myriad majority owner Scott Hawrelechko was granted approval from the Mississippi Gaming Commission to build the resort. Company spokesman Fred Hayne said the company has since become a partnership as investors have come on board.
Hayne, speaking by phone from Edmonton, Alberta, didn’t name the partners - “shareholders,” as he refers to them; he said several lending institutions have contacted Myriad since receiving the gaming commission’s OK.
“Getting the gaming approval was the crux,” said Hayne. “As soon as we did, we started getting calls.”
According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing dated July 9, the stockholders of Myriad are listed below. Their home states, where available, are listed in parentheses, followed by the shares they own and the percent those numbers comprise:
The stock, formerly Synergy 2000 (SYNY), was about 35 cents a share on the NASDAQ after the sale last spring of Myriad to Hawrelechko. Its 52-week high trade was 54 cents, which has come since the transaction and the low for the same period was 5 cents, which was the value of Synergy before the Hawrelechko acquisition.
One SEC filing indicates Synergy had no revenue in the quarter ending March 31; the same filing reported $949 in revenue for the same quarter of 2003, which was actually the total earnings for the year. Synergy earnings were primarily “from the performance of consulting and management services arrangements.”
The company reported earnings of more than $600,000 in 2002.
In Mississippi, Myriad’s registered agent is Tunica lawyer Andrew T. Dulaney, who also serves as the attorney for the Tunica County Board of Supervisors, Tunica County Airport Commission and Tunica County Utility District.
According to information on the Secretary of State’s web site, Myriad was registered as an LLC in May of 2003; no officers besides Dulaney are named on the site.
To say Myriad’s $900 million plan is ambitious is a gross understatement; if it comes to fruition, it could be the biggest thing to hit the Mississippi River since the great earthquake of 1811.
It is billed as a botanical dome, enclosed but still able to support plant life. The dome will measure 5,500 feet long and 1,200 feet wide. The ceiling height in the center will be 300 feet.
Inside the 6.6 million-square-foot dome, a casino, hotel, 18-hole golf course and water park will be set among botanical gardens. The developers have said they may include a snow park.
The 7,000-yard-long golf course will include a clubhouse. The hotel will comprise 1,200 rooms and will be adjacent to the 80,000-square-foot casino. A convention center of almost 400,000 square feet will also be under the massive roof, as well as retail stores and shops.
In full swing, Myriad will employ 3,000.
The dome will consist of a three-layer system developed 30 years ago by Goodyear that allows sunlight to pass through; Myriad officials point out the system is in use in more than two dozen states and several countries, though none are as large as the Tunica project.
“I think it shows renewed interest in Tunica as a world-class destination,” said Webster Franklin, president and CEO of the Tunica Convention & Visitors Bureau. He figures an investment of nearly $1 billion into one property is about as positive a sign as there is.
Franklin pointed out that the quest to turn Tunica into a world-class destination has been boosted during the last few years by $75 million in county funds spent to build a number of projects. They include a major golf course, tennis facility, a county museum, a riverside museum and aquarium, a large exhibition center and improvements to the airport.
Other entertainment venues, including a NASCAR racetrack are being discussed.
More funds will have to be spent to build a road to Myriad. Perry said Indian Mound Road will be the most likely candidate for accessing the property, which is now only accessible by farm-equipment paths. At least three miles of Indian Mound Road will have to be widened to a four-lane highway, he said.
Hayne said that Myriad, by Mississippi law, has a two-year timeframe to build the casino.
“Our plan is to be digging the hole in the ground next spring,” said Hayne. He said a project manager, one familiar with “big-scale projects,” has been identified but Hayne declined to name who it is or what company employs the manager.
Hayne noted that Myriad, as the name implies, is much more than just a casino and hotel: “If it was only a casino and hotel, we’re not really bringing anything new to the area.”
He said the project would likely be built in phases but they would be accomplished quickly, sometimes even simultaneously.
“We don’t want it to be dragging along,” he said. DBJ
