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Santo noted the food and beverage outlets are open to people to enjoy whether they gamble or not. The facility will be designed so the restaurants can be accessed from one side, including family access, while the casino will be on the other side.

Tony Bitonti, an OLG spokesperson, said the Crown corporation’s modernization plan “really is about getting the private sector involved and really elevating gaming in Ontario.”

While the OLG had been running properties in the province since the early 1990s, when it began in Windsor, the last casino built by OLG was in Ajax in 2006.

As customer expectations changed over time, OLG recognized a need to update its aging properties, but was reluctant to shoulder the $1-billion cost, which would have cut into the roughly $2 billion a year in profit given back to the province.

Partnering with the private sector — Gateway, in this case — means new community capital investmen, which translates to jobs and an economic boost. With minimal risk, OLG expects more return for the province and host communities, which share in gaming revenues.

The new Chatham casino will mean the OLG slots facility in Dresden will close by 2020. But employees there will get first crack at jobs being created at the new location.

Hope acknowledged the co-operation and collaboration of Dean Bradley, president of Brad-Lea Meadows Ltd., whose family owned and operated the Wheels Inn hotel and entertainment complex — a former landmark that put Chatham on the map across much of Ontario and nearby U.S. states. The new casino will be built on the old Wheels site at Richmond Street and Keil Drive.

From the renderings he’s seen, Bradley believes the new casino will be a beautiful facility and make that area look great.

“It feels good that the entertainment hub that used to be there with Wheels — bringing people in from outside of town — is being resurrected in a new format,” Bradley said.

Gateway’s Ontario incursion began in late 2016, when the province selected it as service provider for the OLG’s casinos in northern and Southwestern Ontario. The company, which runs a dozen casinos in B.C. and Alberta, assumed operations of the region’s facilities in May 2017.

Chatham Daily News