Monday, November 27, 2006

You might say that Robert L. Johnson's next big move is a gamble: investing more than $100 million in a waterfront casino and entertainment project along the Delaware River in Philadelphia.

Competing for the right to build it adds to a busy year for the founder of Black Entertainment Television and majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats basketball team. He signed on to a film project with producers Harvey and Bob Weinstein this past summer and got a step closer to creating the country's largest minority-owned financial services company by purchasing Urban Trust Bank.

The Philadelphia project would not be Johnson's first foray into gambling. In the past few years Johnson has pursued gambling licenses in the Turks and Caicos Islands and Barbados.

"I cut my teeth in the entertainment business, and gaming is an entertainment product just like movies are, or sports," Johnson said.

The Philadelphia venture is a joint project with Pinnacle Entertainment, a Las Vegas casino management company with properties in St. Louis, Atlantic City, Reno, Nev., and Lake Charles, La.

Pennsylvania laws passed in 2004 allow slot machines, with two complexes in Philadelphia. Johnson's team is one of five bidders competing for those two spots. Plans are being reviewed by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, whose decision is due Dec. 20.

The Johnson-Pinnacle plan would include a 33-acre outdoor waterfront mall with an ice-skating rink, a floating restaurant in the Delaware River and a movie theater. It would be just off Interstate 95, in a neighborhood called Fishtown.

The first phase would be a casino, with 3,000 slot machines and video games such as poker and blackjack. "If you could just imagine a Vegas casino, except there are no table games, no roulette, no craps," said Johnson, who would own about one-third of it.

If they are chosen, Johnson said he and his partners will immediately begin work on a temporary casino in an abandoned warehouse they would refurbish. That would be completed next fall. Plans for the rest of the project are not final.

If the Philadelphia project succeeds, Johnson said he would like to get more involved in local gambling projects. He has said he would support a referendum for slot machines in the District, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled against such a proposal last week.

-- Chris Kirkham