Former New Hampshire senator and Concord businessman Andy Sanborn hopes to build a new 43,000-square-foot casino and entertainment venue on the city’s east side, according to local media reports. Sanborn told planning board members Wednesday that the new gambling venue would bring both jobs and revenue to Concord.
The first phase of the proposed project would be a 24,000-square-foot gaming room with 634 seats and an 8,500-square-foot restaurant and brew-pub that could hold up to 150 diners, reports Concord Monitor. The building would be located near the intersection of Loudon and Sheep Davis roads, and close to Interstate 393 off a street named Break O’Day Drive.
Future plans would call for a hotel and event center. Sanborn is pursuing this new project after the success of his current businesses, which include Draft Sports Bar & Grill and a small-scale charitable gaming establishment in the city downtown named Concord Casino. According to the businessman, the proposed venue would create a new gateway to the city’s east side.
“The way that New Hampshire has established the ability to help us raise money for charitable causes is really, really cool and we are just getting great satisfaction out of doing it,” Sanborn said Thursday, as reported by the cited source. “We are traditional New Hampshire Yankee people who love everything that makes New Hampshire, New Hampshire. We want to pay homage to who we are as a people and this is a way to aesthetically celebrate that.”
State law calls for charitable gaming centers and casinos to donate 35% of gross revenue to specific charities every 10 days. The proposed facility would become the largest fundraiser for local charitable organizations in the county, which could potentially receive upwards of a five-figure yearly sum, yielding a total charitable value “of millions of dollars.”
As for the impact on jobs, the establishment would employ over 250 people. It would also drive visitors to the east side of the city. Sanborn expects to address the planning board once again at their next meeting in October with the intention to present formal site plans for phase one. Overall, board members welcomed the proposal, as per Concord Monitor.
