Oxford Casino in Maine pursues expansion

Civil engineer Robert Berry of Main-Land Development Consultants in Livermore Falls handed board members a document outlining the expansion.

“This is a tremendous amount of information to digest here,” said board member Dennis Fournier. “I need time to read this so I can make an intelligent decision.”

Berry said the rendering he displayed to the board is still being revamped with some floor plan decisions still to be made, “but this is pretty close by this point.”

The project is being advanced by Churchill Downs, which bought the Route 26 gaming enterprise in 2013 for US$160m. The expansion would include a 106-room hotel on three upper floors, “plus an expansion of the casino floor space, a doubling of their restaurant and bar capacity and the addition of a 275-seat multipurpose room.”

Berry added the owners “are proposing expansion in two directions. One is a small office expansion off the north side of the building, to house back-of-house operations, administration, human resources, that sort of thing. The south side would include the other additions.

The company aims to begin construction in August with a possible “soft opening” in April 2017. The board voted to table a decision on accepting the project until the next meeting May 12.