BANGOR – With its three key structures standing and buttoned up against the wintry weather, the construction focus has shifted to the inside at Hollywood Slots Hotel and Raceway.

Over the next several months, workers will be busy installing wallboard and plumbing, running wires and cables, laying carpet and tiles, and completing a host of other tasks in anticipation of a summer 2008 grand opening.

Penn National Gaming Inc.’s $131 million gaming and hotel complex remains both on budget and schedule, Hollywood Slots spokeswoman Amy Kenney said Monday while leading a tour of the facility, which sits on the bank of the Penobscot River and sports what is becoming its signature glass rotunda out front.

The gaming side of the complex is slated to open in early July and the hotel, about a month later, Kenney said.

Located at 500 Main St., across from Bass Park, the facility now under construction will serve as the permanent home for Hollywood Slots, which opened two years ago in an interim facility at the former Miller’s Restaurant a few blocks up the street.

The entertainment complex, which includes a gaming operation with an attached four-level parking garage and seven-story hotel, is huge by Bangor standards, taking up most of the 8-acre site the operation will occupy.

To give a sense of its scale, Kenney earlier said that the gaming floor and “back of the house,” or area for support operations, will be roughly the size of a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

Kenney said a creative design firm was developing a concept for the overall complex, “a sort of art deco-y sort of look, with ornamental fins and things around the property. It’s beautiful.”

Besides opening with 1,000 slot machines – a total that one day could climb to the state-set maximum of 1,500 slots – the new facility will feature:

. Epic Buffet, a 2,700-foot-long horseshoe-shaped serve yourself eatery that will seat about 350 guests. Though the gambling and drinking aspects of the complex are for visitors 21 and older, minors will be allowed to eat in the restaurant and stay in the hotel.

“It’s going to be enormous,” Kenney said of the buffet.

Mike Morris, who recently joined the Bangor operation as facilities director, agreed, adding, “That’s a half-mile worth of food.”

. Take II, a snack bar that will serve Starbucks coffee drinks and lighter fare.

“We’re very excited about that,” Kenney said.

The highest denomination for the gaming machines at Hollywood Slots’ temporary location is $5, though some of the most popular machines are the penny and nickel slots, Kenney said.

The new Hollywood Slots will have $10, and possibly $25 and $50, machines, she said, indicating that the high limit area will be located next to the glass rotunda.

Other amenities that are starting to take shape inside the massive structure are a full-service bar, and a separate lounge area featuring a small circular stage designed to accommodate small ensembles, namely duos and trios, Kenney said. She said the company is looking for local talent to perform on Friday and Saturday nights.

The gaming side of the operation also will have a retail shop and support services for players, among other things.

The seven-story hotel, located behind the parking garage and gaming area, will have 152 rooms, four of which will be luxury suites on the top floor. Each floor will have two handicapped-accessible rooms, Morris noted.

“The view is just gorgeous,” Morris said. The seven corner rooms on the downtown side of the hotel will offer views not only of the river but also of downtown Bangor’s steeple-studded skyline.

Kenney and Morris said each room will have a flat-screen plasma television. They said that amenities for hotel guests will include wireless Internet access, a fitness center and a business center, laundry facilities, conference space for up to 200 people and a 25-seat boardroom.

Kenney said most guests will enter the complex via a looped access road to be named Hollywood Drive. The road will take visitors from Main Street into the parking garage, from where they can enter either the gaming area or hotel.

Fast facts

? Approximate footage (in square feet) at the new Hollywood Slots Hotel and Raceway being built in Bangor:

Gaming (first floor): 101,000

Basement: 8,000

Mezzanine: 20,000

Hotel: Approximately 100,000

? The hotel has 152 guest rooms: 74 with king-size beds, 74 with double-size beds and four suites.

? Levels 2 through 6 have 26 rooms per floor, and Level 7 has 22 rooms, including the suites.

? Quantities of material involved in construction to date:

Material moved off the site: 110,000 cubic yards.

Material brought onto the site: 85,000 cubic yards.

Concrete placed: 7,000 cubic yards.

Structural steel in the gaming building: 482 tons.

Structural steel in the hotel, lobby to podium level: 350 tons.

Major structural pieces in the parking deck: 865, weighing 13 to 44 tons each.

Dawn Gagnon may be reached at dgagnon@bangordailynews.net or 990-8189.