It appears the City of Peoria has come to terms on an agreement with owners of the Par-A-Dice Casino Hotel to allow the company to proceed with a $160 million redevelopment of its gambling venue in East Peoria.
The Peoria City Council has scheduled a special meeting for 6 p.m. Monday to adopt the proposed agreement that would allow the city to collect additional gambling revenue from Nevada-based Boyd Gaming if the city drops its legal challenges against the project.
“The parties have come to an understanding and desire to avoid the risk and expense of costly litigation now or in the future in regard to the redevelopment plan,” states a memo to the council from the city’s legal department.
The city filed an objection with the Illinois Gaming Board on Jan. 20, arguing it will lose out on non-gambling revenue, such as property taxes, sales taxes, hotel, restaurant and amusement taxes “that may have been generated had the new gaming facility been located in Peoria,” according to the memo.
The city claimed Boyd’s plans, which were presented at a meeting of the Illinois Gaming Board in December, may have violated a 1991 intergovernmental agreement between Peoria and East Peoria that requires any land-based casino in the region to be built in Peoria.
Par-A-Dice plans to use pipes of water from the Illinois River under a new gambling floor near the existing hotel, in an effort to meet the terms of that agreement.
Several Peoria city council members publicly objected, including Zach Oyler, who called the plan “incredibly disingenuous.”
