Almost six years after it was originally proposed, the Norfolk casino project has cleared the last regulatory hurdle it needs to break ground.
Construction is expected to start early next year, with a temporary casino opening in November 2025 to satisfy state timeline requirements.
The full hotel and casino complex — including 1,500 slot machines, 50 table games and several restaurants — is projected to open in September of 2027.
The outcome of the Norfolk city council vote Tuesday was no surprise. The city had signaled its support for the new development group’s plan several times over the last few months. But that came only after years of the council objecting to plans from the Pamunkey Indian Tribe’s that scaled-down the original proposal and broke it into multiple construction phases.
This summer, the tribe brought in Boyd Gaming, one of the nation’s largest casino operators, to get the long-simmering project moving. Boyd now owns a majority stake in Gold Eagle, the development group that will build and run the planned $500 million casino next to Harbor Park.
Councilwoman Andrea McClellan, a long-time critic of the casino concept, was the lone vote against the development Tuesday.
Her objection this time: the developers’ plans to allow smoking inside the casino.
“From the residents that I’ve talked to, some don’t want the casino…but those who do are really concerned with the workers who work there and that they’re going to be around second hand smoke and that’s not something we should have in the City of Norfolk,” McClellan said, explaining her ‘no’ vote.
At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, City Attorney Bernard Pishko said state law includes an exemption to smoking bans for casinos and that cities can’t ban it themselves.
Pishko said a casino operator could decide to ban smoking from their establishment, but the developer behind Norfolk’s casino “has not been agreeable to a prohibition” because of the money it stands to lose by banning smoking.
Before they’d realized the state code exempted casinos, Norfolk’s Planning Commission made plans last month to amend the city’s zoning code to prohibit smoking in casinos at the request of the commission’s Chairman Kevin Murphy.
“I was very disappointed to see you were planning to allow smoking when the previous operator had agreed not to allow smoking in the casino, and that was a great way to distinguish the Norfolk casino as a non-smoking casino,” Murphy told representatives of the developer during the meeting.
The commission voted to recommend that the city council approve the casino’s development application at that September meeting, with Murphy casting the lone ‘no’ vote.
The Rivers Casino in neighboring Portsmouth experienced some controversy over its handling of smoking within a week of opening in early 2023.
After guests complained of insufficient ventilation, the casino declared half of its gaming floor ‘smoke free.’ However, there are no barriers separating the smoking half of the casino from the non-smoking half.
