Bangor slots parlor to open July 1

AUGUSTA – Members of the Maine Gambling Control Board were briefed Thursday on the near completion of the Hollywood Slots Hotel and Raceway in Bangor and plans for a July 1 grand opening of the $131 million gaming and entertainment complex.

The new facility at 500 Main St. is slated to open at 10 a.m. Tuesday, July 1, with 1,000 slot machines – more than double the roughly 490 machines now available at Hollywood Slots’ temporary home in the former Miller’s Restaurant.

According to a timeline provided by the gambling board’s executive director, Robert Welch, the project’s general contractor, Cianbro Corp. of Pittsfield, is slated to turn the complex over to Hollywood Slots on May 1. Later that month, some of the new slot machines will be arriving and one of the two state inspectors will relocate to the new facility.

As it stood this week, Hollywood Slots planned to close its interim facility after closing time on Sunday, June 29.

Hollywood Slots General Manager Jon Johnson said Thursday that the company hopes to accomplish the move to the new complex within a 24-hour period, with a brief reopening on the evening of Monday, June 30, for a charity play event for invitees. The official grand opening for the public is set for the morning of July 1.

Members of the gambling control board plan to tour the new complex on Wednesday, May 28.

Though the board usually meets in Augusta at the headquarters of the Maine Department of Public Safety, the panel will meet that day in Bangor, likely at the Bangor Auditorium and Civic Center, located across Main Street from the gambling complex.

During Thursday’s board meeting a potential wrinkle arose involving the cost of the move.

Scientific Games Inc., the operator of the computer system that provides oversight of the Hollywood Slots gambling facility for the state, reportedly has told state gambling officials that a move like the one contemplated by Hollywood Slots ordinarily would take 15 days, according to Welch.

The Gardiner-based company wants additional compensation for condensing the move into a 24-hour period, Welch said. He said the dollar figure for the additional amount Scientific Games is seeking could not be divulged because it is proprietary.

Welch did say – and Johnson confirmed – that Hollywood Slots has volunteered to pick up a portion of the difference.

Board member Peter Danton of Saco objected to having the state, which is facing a serious budget crunch, pick up any of the additional cost.

As Danton saw it, the state should ask some recipients of a portion of the tax proceeds from the Bangor slot machines – specifically commercial harness racing tracks and off-track betting facilities – to “pony up,” though he and other board members acknowledged that such a measure would be completely voluntary.

Danton said he wasn’t as interested in seeking donations from the scholarship and health programs that also benefit from the tax on slot machines. A letter to slots revenue recipients will be prepared for the board’s review.

Besides slot machines, the new gambling complex will feature a state-of-the-art simulcast facility for those who prefer wagering on horse races, live musical entertainment on Friday and Saturday nights, a gift shop, a nearly half-mile long buffet and a smaller snack bar.

In keeping with a “tinsel town” theme, a creative design firm from California has developed a concept for the overall complex, an art deco look with ornamental columns, fins and similar touches.

The look is meant to evoke the grandeur of a glamorous hotel from 1920s and 1930s Hollywood, according to Hollywood Slots spokeswoman Amy Kenney.

A connected seven-story hotel is scheduled to open in August. It will have 152 rooms, four of which will be double-size penthouse suites. Many of the rooms will offer views of the Penobscot River and the Bangor-Brewer skyline.

The hotel will include a business center and fitness area, as well as two rooms for meetings and conferences, both equipped with flat-screen panels for video displays.

The complex, which includes an attached four-level parking garage with 1,500 spaces, is huge by Bangor standards, taking up most of the 8-acre site the operation occupies.

dgagnon@bangordailynews.net

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