Chicago gaming

from the Chicago Sun Times (10/24):

Making no small bets
Latest scheme to bring casino to Windy City is on Vegas scale

October 24, 2007
DAVID ROEDER droeder@suntimes.com

"Maybe Daniel Burnham would applaud Chicago's energized push to get a downtown casino out of the state Legislature. Hearings a week ago on the matter showed that if nothing else, city officials are making no little plans for gambling.

They want something on a Vegas scale that would dwarf the riverboat operations. Mayor Daley's aides blithely estimate that revenues could hit $1 billion a year.

Where could an operation of that scale go? If you rule out McCormick Place, a site the business interests say is too distant from downtown hotels and restaurants, then real estate experts and planners concentrate on two possibilities. They are the old downtown post office at 433 W. Van Buren and the Congress Plaza Hotel, 520 S. Michigan.

The old post office, which spans Congress Parkway, is massive enough to accommodate anything that can be dreamed up. It's under the control of Neil Bluhm, a developer with more than a passing interest in the slots. He owns stakes in casinos in Las Vegas and on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, and he tried to get a gambling operation here in Des Plaines.

The drawback to the site is that Bluhm's development firm still needs to sell condos in parts of the post office to fill out the space. Will people live next to a casino?" ...

for the full story see:
http://www.suntimes.com/business/roeder/616718,CST-FI
N-roeder24.article