Mississippi Casino Resort Long Delayed in Legal Battle Cleared by State Supreme Court

A long-delayed Mississippi cassino resort hotel proposed for Long Beach has been cleared to displace forrard by the state’s highest court.

Mississippi existent landed estate developer Jim Maxfield Frederick Parrish has been seeking body politic approval to construct a $180 meg cassino resort hotel across from Long Beach Harbor since 2018. Parrish owns Parrish’s Restaurant & Lounge on the tidelands, as swell as the vacant attribute across US Highway 90 — aka Beach Boulevard.

Parrish wants to establish his casino on the ground north of Highway 90. He plans to satisfy say riverboat gaming laws requiring casinos to live within 800 feet of the Gulf Coast’s tight heights irrigate line of business by tethering the resort’s primary body structure to Parrish’s Restaurant.

Parrish’s proposal has been fastened upward inwards courts nearly since his entry of the scheme. The body politic previously argued that since the programme doesn’t include literal gaming within 800 feet of water, the resort hotel should non be approved by the Mississippi River Gaming Commission (MGC).

But the Magnolia State Supreme Margaret Court this week came pull down on Parrish’s side. The high royal court cited before rental and bound agreements reached 'tween the developers and the province secretary’s office.

Tidelands inwards Question

The Parrish’s constructed and opened Harbor Market — the intimate elevated “spaceship” construction — after reaching a tideland’s hire understanding with the metropolis and state. Tidelands are lands that are covered and uncovered day-after-day past water as a final result of tides.

The Mississippi Secretary of State’s office manages tidelands and leases such dimension to upland buck private owners for businesses that benefit the public and state.

Parrish reached a tidelands let arrangement with the province in 2011 for the eating house venue. But in his diligence for the enjoyment of the tidelands, Parrish told local officials that his grand vision was to ane mean solar day build a gaming locus called Long Beach Harbor Resort.

The state, however, has subsequently tried to stopover Parrish and his entity, Long Beach Resort, LLC, from loaning the market tidelands lease for a casino. Current Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Thomas Augustus Watson denied the developer’s bid to tie the tidelands to his vacant holding crossways Highway 90. But the nation Supreme Margaret Court concluded that Watson’s actions were unjust.

“Had the State non leased this right wing forth to the City (and the Resort past ratification) in 2011 through and through the Tidelands Lease, the State would be fountainhead within its rights as Trustee of the Tidelands to require the Resort to move into into a break up tidelands lease. But the State did charter this right hand forth and, further, did specifically ratify the prior Resort Lease,” the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled.

Gaming Commission inward Control

With Maxfield Frederick Parrish at present having a qualifying belongings to establish a casino resort, the MGC testament want to retrospect the project. The process involves the state gaming commission reviewing financing plans and conducting background signal checks on primary investors and officials involved with the undertaking.

Parrish said inward 2019 prior to the pandemic and before to a greater extent res publica legal battles that he had secured funding to make for the $180 meg vision to reality. The 2019 blueprint included a gambling casino floor measuring 40,000 square up feet and a 300-room hotel.