GULFPORT, Mississippi—Hurricane Katrina devastated states and cities along the Gulf of Mexico. While the Greater New Orleans Region received a great deal of national attention after its levees and flood walls failed, other locations along the coastal area experienced just as much (if not more) damaged.
One such area was the Biloxi-Gulfport region of Mississippi, where Hurricane Katrina made its second landfall after passing over Florida. A popular gambling destination, people could come to Gulfport and try their luck on any one of the numerous gaming barges just offshore.
The Copa Casino was a three-level, 120,000-square-foot gaming barge operating. Two friends and Gulfport natives, Rick Carter and Terry Green, owned the casino. Cathy Mackenzie is the VP and general counsel for the company’s newer property, and she held the same titles at Copa Casino before the hurricane. When she came down to the casino 28 August 2005, the day of evacuation, the barge was still afloat.
“When I returned, it traveled approximately half a mile to three-quarters of a mile north and was sitting on land,” she said.
The barge was a total loss, she said. The nearby Harrah’s Grand Casino lost its gaming barge as well, and the company decided not to reopen its resort. That gave the owners of the destroyed Copa an opportunity.
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| The owners of the destroyed Copa Casino barge bought the former Harrah’s Grand Casino, after Harrah’s decided not to reopen following the storm. To the left is the property the Copa’s owners used as a footprint for the new Island View Casino Resort. The destroyed structure in the middle is the former Grand Casino barge after the hurricane pushed it ashore. On the right is the former Grand Gulfport, owned by Harrah’s, which is the location of the Island View’s newest expansion. (Photo: Kristen Miller) |
“After that is when we purchased the assets of the former Grand Casino,” Mackenzie said. “We rebranded it to the Island View Casino Resort.”
It was a daunting task to rebuild the company from scratch, she said, and some days it seemed like a mountain they wouldn’t be able to scale. They were rebuilding in a disaster area, she said. Working in a “catastrophically damaged area” had its challenges, she said, because they faced zoning issues, elevation requirements and limitations on where gaming could be sited.
“We were dealing with mass destruction everywhere, and we had all these changes in the laws and federal regulations,” Mackenzie said.
Island View isn’t MGM, Harrah’s or a top 10 national property, she said. It’s a small, single-asset company owned by two guys who are from Gulfport. To the company’s credit, she said, the owners didn’t give up.
There was some heavy damage in the storm, she said, but the company was able to completely renovate and rehabilitate the structure. The company opened the casino tower hotel and the first phase of the gaming floor 16 September 2006 (state law changed to allow gaming on land). The second phase opened 14 May 2007, and opened up 50,000 square feet of gaming as well as food and beverage and entertainment.
This past April, the casino completed a $58-million expansion to open a second building, a 269,412-square foot, 18-story tower south of the original resort, adding 405 hotel rooms and upscale amenities.
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| The new Island View Casino Resort opened its first phase of rebuilding (seen to the right) in 2006 that included a hotel and gaming floor. The second phase opened in 2007. This past April, the Island View completed and opened its second building (seen to the left) in a $58-million expansion project. (Photo: Island View Casino Resort) |
“It’s now a 40-acre resort with almost 1,000 hotel rooms, eight restaurants, a golf course, two beautiful resort pools and a casino,” Mackenzie said. “That’s a testament to Rick and Terry and to their belief in their hometown and the resiliency in the market. …
“It’s a point of pride for us to be able to say, ‘Here we are 10 years later,’” she said.