Whatever else it will bring to Bowling Green, you can now bet that the expansion of Franklin’s Mint Gaming Hall to a satellite location near Greenwood Mall will create a good number of jobs.
Mint Gaming, an offshoot of the Kentucky Downs horse racing track, offers gambling through Historical Horse Racing machines and simulcasting along with food, drink and entertainment.
Now, it’s bringing a scaled-down version of the gambling venue to Bowling Green and plans to hire nearly 150 people to staff it.
Mint Gaming has scheduled a job fair for Wednesday from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. at Holiday Inn University Plaza, aiming to hire food servers, cooks, bartenders, cashiers, maintenance workers, security personnel and managers.
“Our goal is to hire as many as 150 people from Bowling Green and surrounding towns,” said John Wholihan, Mint Gaming Hall’s director of marketing.
Wholihan said many of the jobs are “just customer service,” but some require technical skills.
“We’ll need gaming technicians, people who do some wiring and electronics work,” he said.
The workers are being hired for a 40,000-square-foot facility to be housed in the former hh gregg store in the Greenwood Market Place shopping center at 2475 Scottsville Road.
A $6.2 million renovation of the space is under way, and Wholihan said it should be completed before the end of the year.
It will be about half the size of the Mint facility in Franklin that was built by Kentucky Downs owners Marc Falcone and Ron Winchell after they bought the racetrack in 2019.
The Franklin facility has more than 1,000 of the HHR machines that have fueled the growth of Kentucky Downs in recent years and allowed it to offer larger purses for live racing.
Bowling Green’s Mint facility will have “400 to 500” HHR machines, Wholihan said.
Like Franklin’s Mint Gaming Hall, the Bowling Green location will include a Corner Cafe serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. Wholihan said it will also have a “Winner’s Circle” bar and “Post Time” lounge.
Wholihan said a mid-December opening of the Bowling Green Mint is possible, but he said it would be a “soft opening” that would allow the staff to “work out some bugs” before a full-blown opening in early 2022.
That Mint Gaming is expanding into Bowling Green can be chalked up to action taken by the Kentucky General Assembly earlier this year.
In February, the legislature passed and Gov. Andy Beshear signed a bill legalizing the HHR machines. That action was followed quickly by an approval by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission of Kentucky Downs’ application to expand its licensed premises.
Falcone and Winchell have since been aggressive in trying to expand their horse racing and gambling interests throughout Kentucky.
They have entered into a partnership with Keeneland Race Course to develop a harness-racing track in Corbin and an HHR facility in Williamsburg.
Through a corporation called BG Landco, Falcone and Winchell tried to land a gambling facility on a 16-acre tract in Bowling Green across Ken Bale Boulevard from the Sam’s Club and Stockdale’s stores.
In May, that plan was defeated in a 7-3 vote by the City-County Planning Commission of Warren County, leading to the current development that doesn’t require planning commission approval.
The state’s legalization of the HHR machines has led to other expansion plans. Ellis Park, the Henderson thoroughbred race track, announced plans in October to build a 60,000-square-foot satellite gaming facility in Owensboro’s Towne Square Mall.
Ellis Park is also planning improvements at its Henderson location.
– Follow business reporter Don Sergent on Twitter @BGDNbusiness or visit bgdailynews.com.
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