By Steed
Potawatomi is opening the flood gates by expanding their brand with a newly developed extension to their hotel this year. Potawatomi then submitted a bid to entertain the city of Waukegan, IL. 40 minutes south of Milwaukee. “We were already servicing the Northern Illinois Chicago area since we open in 1991. When the RFP (request for proposal) went out we had to make a choice, do we let another operator come in basically take over that area that we’re currently servicing, or do we put our bid in and try to maintain our guest coming to our property as well as expand the brand to the Illinois market.” Stated Rodney Ferguson CEO and General Manager of Potawatomi Hotel & Casino.
The Governor of Illinois J.B. Pritzker has already shaking up the state by legalizing medicinal and recreational marijuana use, but he also open up more cities to provide night entertainment with more casinos in the state. The new law added casino licenses for Waukegan, Rockford, Danville, Williamson Counties, and the south suburbs of Chicago. The city of Chicago was also granted a casino license under the new legislation. “We have not selected anybody and were not doing as a no-brainer approach. We’re very careful and moving with great deliberation about how we’re seating on this process to make absolutely certain the selection are open and transparent; everybody understand! What it is and were following the law 100 percent…”. Stated Robert Long city Attorney of Waukegan.
Waukegan was granted permission to have a casino license which will allow them to begin the stages of Bid submission under the new law. They opened RFP and received six, and out of the six Casino developers who submitted RFP, Potawatomi is the only Casino from Wisconsin which the city of Waukegan is looking to narrow down by the third week in September.
Potawatomi stated they are looking forward to the review by the end of October.
