Continued opposition to proposed Hastings casino led developers to plan move to Ogallala
Developers of a racetrack and casino are trying to move their project from Hastings because of community pushback.
By News Channel NebraskaSTORY ON THE PLAN TO MOVE THE LICENSE
HASTINGS, Neb. — Developers of a racetrack and casino are trying to move their project from Hastings because of community pushback.
Hastings Exposition and Racing, Inc. submitted its racing license application to state regulators on Tuesday proposing to move the license to Ogallala. In Nebraska, you must have a racing license in order to build a casino.
The company’s legal counsel, Brian Jorde, says a handful of powerful people in Hastings made it clear they didn’t want the development in town.
“You don’t invest that kind of money in a community where they’re not really supportive all the way around," Jorde said. "We battled for two years and then we kind of just realized, enough is enough of this.”
Specifically, the company was weary of an effort to gather signatures on a referendum petition to place the developer’s conditional use permit on the ballot.
“We couldn’t risk dealing with that, litigating that, going another year and a half, two years with no location while every other track was getting up and casino was getting up and running,” Jorde said.
The decision to move is a sharp shift from November, when Jorde said the company hoped to announce a gaming partner in the next couple of months and wanted to break ground on the project in 2023. Those statements came after securing regulatory approval from the Hastings City Council on a 6-2 vote. The council had rejected a slightly different request from the developers in March.
On the phone on Tuesday, Jorde said talks with possible gaming partners at the Hastings site had been ongoing. He says it was a cumulative effect that led to the shift.
“When you just kind of keep getting smacked in the face, at some point, you just gotta realize that they don’t want us here and that this is going to be a problem,” Jorde said.
The move west will position the proposed casino and racetrack away from any other competitors. If the license application is approved, the new gaming partner would be Elite Casino Resorts. That company owns Grand Island Casino Resort, which is about 20 miles away from the proposed casino site in Hastings.
The Ogallala track would race quarter horses, which is different from the other tracks in Nebraska that race thoroughbreds. Brian Becker, who operates Hastings Exposition and Racing, already owns property in Gering and plans to create a circuit for quarter horse racing.
“The program would be to have a circuit between Ogallala and Gering for all the quarter horse folks and to pull in people from Colorado and Wyoming," Jorde said. "Then the thoroughbreds have their five tracks, casinos and that’s how the state should be laid out.”
It is unclear when the Nebraska Racing and Gaming Commission will act on the application to move the license.
The Ogallala development, called Lake Mac Casino Resort & Racetrack, is still in the design stages.