Dayton racino hits construction setback

Construction of a planned Dayton racino is running into problems, but the delays aren’t yet expected to delay the project’s target completion date of summer 2014, company officials told a state commission on Thursday.

Workers are taking longer than expected to demolish and clean up concrete slabs in an old press pit at the Dayton racino’s site, a former Delphi manufacturing plant at Wagner Ford and Needmore roads, said Steven Snyder, vice-president of corporate development for Penn National Gaming.

As a result, the Dayton project is lagging behind another racino Penn National is building near Youngstown, Snyder said. But unlike the Youngstown project, the Dayton racino involves industrial cleanup.

Snyder, addressing the Ohio State Racing Commission Thursday morning in Columbus on the status of the two planned racinos, said the difficulties aren’t expected to throw the project off its timeline for now.

“We’re still optimistic we can make up some of the time on the construction side that we’ve lost on the remediation work,” he said.

Both the Dayton and Youngstown projects have a targeted completion date of sometime in the third quarter of 2014.

The Hollywood Gaming at Dayton Raceway is expected to create 1,000 jobs at the facility or related businesses and 1,000 construction jobs throughout the life of the project. The construction costs are estimated at $125 million.

An official with a planned racino in Warren County also addressed the racing commission Thursday.

The Miami Valley Gaming Raceway is still on track for a Dec. 12, 2013 opening, with live racing beginning sometime in February, said company president Jim Simms.

The $175 million Warren County racino, located just east of Interstate 75 on Ohio 63 in Turtlecreek Twp., is expected to create 700 permanent jobs, including 450 full-time posts.

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