Caesars Virginia ‘tops off’ Danville casino

Caesars Virginia is a step closer to opening its permanent casino in Danville after a topping-off ceremony Thursday.

Though the temporary casino opened in May 2023, work on the permanent Caesars Virginia casino and 12-story hotel has been ongoing. The floor of the casino has been poured, metal framing is in place and the hotel structure has been fully built, with windows being placed onto the building’s facade up to the sixth floor, according to a news release from Caesars.

The hotel will have 320 rooms — a reduction from the originally announced 500 rooms — plus a swimming pool and spa.

A partnership between Caesars Entertainment and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), Caesars Virginia started construction on the casino in August 2022. The development, at the former Dan River Inc. Schoolfield mill site, is expected to be finished by the end of the year.

Chris Albrecht, senior vice president and general manager of Caesars Virginia, was excited that he doesn’t have to say “next year” or “late next year” anymore. “This has truly changed the skyline of Danville when you come from miles away and now see this great addition to the three sisters,” Albrecht said in a statement, referring to the local nickname for a trio of prominent smokestacks left over from closed textiles factories.

The topping-off ceremony, which marks the completion of the building’s framework of a building, included hoisting a tree and American flag to the highest point of the hotel, placed next to a silhouette of Gaius Julius Caesar himself.

“In my eyes, a topping-off solidifies the fact that Danville made the right choice in picking Caesars as a partner in this project,” Barron Fuller, regional president of the Southeast Region for Caesars Entertainment, said in a statement.

The 40,000-square-foot temporary casino brought in $145 million in revenue from its opening in May 2023 through the end of the year. It has more than 400 employees and officials estimated that at least 800 people will work in the permanent casino, which will feature 1,300 slots, 85 live table tames, 24 electronic table games, a poker room and sports book, along with bars, restaurants, a 2,500-seat live entertainment theater and more than 50,000 square feet of meeting and convention space.

Virginia’s first casino, the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Bristol, opened in July 2022 in a temporary space at the former Bristol Mall after receiving licensing approval less than 90 days earlier. In December 2022, developers began construction nearby on the $500 million permanent Hard Rock casino, which is slated to open in July. The 90,000-square-foot permanent resort casino will include a 2,200-seat indoor entertainment venue, but early plans for an outdoor venue there were scrapped.

The $340 million Rivers Casino Portsmouth, which received its license in November 2022, opened its permanent space in January 2023.

The Pamunkey Indian Tribe’s license for the proposed $500 million HeadWaters Resort & Casino on the Elizabeth River in Norfolk is still pending state approval and construction has not yet started. The Norfolk Architectural Review Board is the first body to review plans for the casino, which is pending approval from Norfolk City Council. The review board was set to review the casino’s new plans during its Jan. 8 meeting, but developers continued the review until Jan. 22.

Following Richmond voters’ rejection of a proposed $562 million casino for the second time, Petersburg lawmakers are seeking to hold a casino referendum in the city, which would require the General Assembly to allow a casino in a city with a population below 200,000. State Senate Bill 268, with state Sens. Lashrecse Aird and Louise Lucas as patrons, would amend requirements for a host city to ones favorable for Petersburg, The Progress-Index reported.