BANGOR – Members and staff of the state’s Gambling Control Board got a chance Wednesday to check out the nearly completed Hollywood Slots Hotel and Raceway.

And with just more than a month to go before the complex’s July 1 grand opening, they saw that the push is on to complete the finishing touches.

According to Hollywood Slots general manager Jon Johnson, the company’s investment in the new complex has reached $132 million, about 85 percent of which was spent in Maine.

As Johnson sees it, the complex will be a major economic engine for the region.

He pegged the annual payroll at about $15 million, with a work force of more than 500. About 90 percent of that work force will be employed full time, with benefits and an average wage of about $10 an hour, not including tips.

Virtually all of the supplies, including food and beverages, will be purchased locally, he said.

The city, which by state law must own the 8-acre site the complex is on, will get a percentage of the slots proceeds in “rent.” Bangor also will be receiving an estimated $2 million in taxes annually on the Hollywood Slots building and equipment.

Despite two tour groups of about 10 people each being escorted through the facility Wednesday, workers from general contractor Cianbro Corp. and its bevy of subcontractors barely skipped a beat, pausing only long enough to let visitors squeeze by.

In recent months, construction workers have installed windows and sheetrock. They’ve painted walls and ceilings and laid out carpeting and flooring. They also have installed most of the pre-cast ornamental columns, fins and other architectural touches designed to give the overall complex an Art Deco look.

Many of those features have been given a faux marble paint treatment, all done by hand by one artist, Hollywood Slots spokeswoman Amy Kenney said.

Workers also have installed 400 security cameras, quadruple the number now scanning the company’s smaller interim facility operating a few blocks up Main Street in the former Miller’s Restaurant building.

“You have more camera coverage than the Super Bowl,” gambling board chairman George McHale told Johnson. McHale, a local television and radio personality, also heads the state’s harness racing commission.

Board member Larry Hall, a retired state trooper and small-businessman from Dedham, said there was “a lot to take in. This seems like kind of a big place for Bangor, Maine.”

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

During their tour, the state gaming regulators also got to see the cash-handling areas, security checkpoints and the gaming floor, where more than half of the 1,000 slot machines the new facility will open with are being installed.

The rest of the slots will be moved to 500 Main St. after the company’s interim facility closes for good at the end of the business day on Sunday, June 29.

Before the grand opening, all of the machines will be hooked up to “the wire,” or the cables that link them to the Gardiner offices of Scientific Games, which operates the computer system that monitors the slot machines in Bangor.

Though originally planned for the new complex, a simulcast facility for horse race betting will not be part of the mix. The space created for that operation, located just off the gaming floor, will remain vacant for now.

McHale and Johnson confirmed Wednesday that a conflict was discovered this spring between the state’s harness racing laws and newer laws governing slots.

The slots law allows that kind of betting to take place within a 2,000-foot radius of Bangor Raceway, but the harness racing laws state that betting on horses must take place within an enclosed area at the track itself. So, at least for the time being, simulcast wagering will stay at the racetrack.

Also during Wednesday’s walk-through, Johnson pointed out the kitchen facility, where the company expects to be cooking for as many as 3,000 people a day, including employees, who can eat there at a discounted cost of $3.50 a meal.

Most of that food will be consumed in the facility’s two restaurants, Epic Buffet and Take II snack bar.

The buffet will feature more than 200 food items, including Asian, Italian, “home cooking” stations, salad and dessert bars, and a Brazilian-style grill where meat will be cooked on spits.

Though the opening is a month away, cooks already are testing menu items. On Wednesday, huge stainless steel cauldrons of soup were simmering away, while roasted beef bones sat on trays waiting to be boiled down into stock.

The hotel is less finished and won’t open until late July or early August, Johnson said. The game plan calls for completing the seven levels from the ground up, with a few floors opening at a time through about September.

It will have 152 rooms, four of them double-sized penthouse suites. Many of the rooms will offer views of the Penobscot River and the Bangor-Brewer skyline.

Johnson said rooms overlooking the Penobscot River will cost about $20 more a night, and that rates for typical rooms will be seasonally adjusted, ranging from about $99 to $169 night.

The premium being charged for rooms with a river view might be worthwhile. When offered a peek into a typical room, almost everyone on the tour made a beeline for the windows.

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.

Johnson said that about 20 organizations have booked events at Hollywood Slots conference facility.

dgagnon@bangordailynews.net

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