Not yet, but it will have the city's fourth attempt at a Margaritaville-branded resort. The first was considered but not put into action by Casino Magic Corp. The company was bought out by Pinnacle Entertainment, which lost the Casino Magic casino barge in Hurricane Katrina. It flipped the site to Harrah's Entertainment, which announced a $700 million, Margaritaville-themed resort. It was not to be. Harrah's 2007 leveraged buyout constrained the capital available to redevelop the Casino Magic site and the Great Recession put the project into a deep freeze. Harrah's – which had become Caesars Entertainment – sold the real estate to entrepreneur and gaming veteran Cono Caranna III (see QoD 3/5/2-16, in the Archives.
What Casino Magic, Pinnacle, and Caesars were unable to do, Caranna did: namely develop a resort on the fallow beachfront acreage. (In between the failure of the Harrah's project and Caranna's oceanside development, there was a small Margaritaville-branded casino in Biloxi, but a poor location and lack of business quickly doomed it to closure in 2014.) This week, it was announced that Caranna's resort would carry the Margaritaville brand. In addition to a LandShark Bar & Grill and 5 o'clock Somewhere Bar, it will boast a Lost Key Bar. And if you can clamber all the way up the four-story, volcano-inspired rock-climbing wall, you can go through the ceiling into the Margaritaville Restaurant – an unusual way to arrive for dinner, to be sure.
Other amenities will include "boutique bowling" (six lanes), golf simulators with a repertory of 87 courses, Cloud Coaster – a hybrid zip line and rollercoaster – as well as a pool, lazy river, and a pair of water slides, plus a plethora of video-game machines. Décor will reinforce the Jimmy Buffet-inspired theme. In all, 55,000 square feet will be dedicated to recreation, retail and dining. The hotel will feature 373 hotel rooms and 83 suites. While it will have something for everyone, what Margaritaville won't have is gambling. As the Biloxi Sun-Herald reported, "The resort has the elements needed for a casino -- a legal site, ample hotel rooms and something new and exciting for the market -- but a casino isn't part of the project."
This isn't for lack of expertise on Carrana's part. He's worked in marketing both at Beau Rivage and in Las Vegas at the Venetian. However, there's not much elasticity in the Mississippi casino market these days and a new casino, the Scarlet Pearl, just opened down the road in D'Iberville. That being said, we wouldn't rule out a Margaritaville casino if market conditions improve. In the meantime, if you want to work for Caranna, there's a job fair being held May 1-3 at the Biloxi Civic Center. We wish all applicants the best of luck as they vie for the 600 positions available.
