KENOSHA, Wis. — More gaming could soon be coming to southeastern Wisconsin.
The Kenosha City Council has approved a proposal to bring a future Hard Rock Casino to the city's west side.
The council voted 11 to 6 in favor of the agreement with the Menominee Tribe’s gaming authority on Wednesday, outlining plans for a $360 million dollar complex just west of I-94.
The 60-acre site would also include a hotel, restaurants and an entertainment venue.
Rocco LaMacchia, alderman of the 5th district and the Kenosha Common Council president, said he voted in support of the casino.
He said it has the potential to bring in massive revenue to the area, which can bring improvements to things like police, fire and public works departments.
“We had a lot of people from outside of the city like Somers, Pleasant Prairie, Bristol, against it,” he said. “But it’s not in their territory. It’s in the city of Kenosha.”
Hard Rock said the proposed project will have a significant, local economic impact. It has early estimates indicating a total new development cost of around $360 million, including approximately $104 million in construction payroll with almost 1,000 construction jobs for 18 months.
The total direct, induced, and indirect annual impact on the economic output is estimated at over $352 million for Kenosha County and almost $492 million for the State of Wisconsin as a whole.
“The city will feed off that,” said LaMacchia. “You’re going to get gas stations going up, maybe a couple of hotels, restaurants going up around it… it’s going to bring everybody off the interstate because it’s right on the interstate.
Alderman Kelly MacKay of the 7th district voted no for the casino.
“I think this is just a temporary fix to a potential long-term problem,” said MacKay. “Casino gambling has become so saturated within our area that I don’t see the long-term thinking to have another casino here."
He said the region has enough casinos and he wouldn’t want to see another one come to the area.
“Quality of life issues are very important in the city,” he said. “We’re already having addiction issues in this area. Adding gambling to the mix would be adding gasoline to a fire that’s already burning.”
John Bush lives in Kenosha and is also against the proposed plans. Bush said he’s worried about things like more traffic and a different image for Kenosha.
“I’m not pleased with the vote that happened last night,” said Bush. “I don’t think it represented the citizens of Kenosha and where we want to go as a community.”
His worry lies more specifically the impact it could have on the people.
“There’s going to be issues as far as a rise in gambling addiction, which is a very serious thing as a recovering addict myself,” he said. “One addiction leads to another.”
The project is estimated to generate more than 2.4 million annual visits to the casino and entertainment center, with nearly 1.6 million of those visits coming from outside the state of Wisconsin.
Kenosha County would still have to vote on the proposed plans. If passed, the agreements would go to the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.