Penn Entertainment also announced a similar plan for the casino in downtown Joliet, which it also owns.īetter, it said, for the casinos to be near the expressway for easier access. Remarkably, Aurora was on board, with city officials calling the new plan “one of the most significant developments in the history of Aurora,” which is exactly what they said when the riverboats came to downtown and were compared by the then-mayor to the coming of the railroads. The plan involved Aurora giving over land the city owned and issuing new bonds to pay up to $50 million toward the cost of the project. They promised a grand new casino in a more convenient location with bars, restaurants and a spa. Last month, its owner, Penn Entertainment, said it wanted to close the long-docked riverboat downtown and rebuild it on a site closer to I-88. On a recent visit, the Hollywood Casino looked sad, diminished and a far cry from its glamour in the 1990s. When the casino boat went into service in 1993, Illinois required all casino operations to be on waterborne facilities.
Demolition continues in 2010 aboard the City of Lights I, part of a Hollywood Casino built on a pair of barges that floated on the Fox River in Aurora.
