Commerce Square Condos - Gonzales Louisiana

Maestri-Murrell

Maestri-Murrell, a commercial real estate firm founded by Lawrence Maestri and George Murrell, has grown from one employee in 1989 managing multi-family properties for the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) to over 95 employees today managing a diverse portfolio of commercial, retail and multi-family properties throughout the state of Louisiana. In 1991, Maestri-Murrell began looking for investment properties for clients across the South and Southeast and today offers development, brokerage and leasing services to a wide variety of clients.

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Majority of BR voters take chance on casino

Pinnacle Entertainment’s proposed casino was headed to a convincing win late Saturday night, getting 56 percent of the votes with 87 percent of the precincts reporting.

At 11:40 p.m., Pinnacle’s proposed South Baton Rouge casino was winning by a count of 49,813 to 38,746, with 274 of 314 East Baton Rouge precincts reporting.

Under Louisiana’s Constitution, any expansion of gambling, such as a riverboat casino, must get approval of parish voters before it can operate there.

Pinnacle’s bid to build a new casino with a 100-room hotel in South Baton Rouge had drawn strong opposition from the two existing boats that have operated for years in downtown Baton Rouge.

Pinnacle CEO and Chairman Daniel Lee said the fight for voter approval was one of the most difficult that his company has faced.

“We’ve never had competing casinos launch such a negative campaign against us, but the people obviously saw through it,” Lee said.

Lee said Pinnacle will need zoning approval from the Metro Council and must get its final design approved by the Gaming Control Board.

“We hope to have that done in six months, and then it will take about two years to build,” Lee said.

Michael Beychok, political consultant for the existing casinos, said the heavy turnout is an indication of the amount of interest in the Pinnacle issue.

“It looks like turnout may reach a 40 percent turnout,  and that’s almost historical,” Beychok said, noting that predictions for the statewide turnout were about 15 percent.

Beychok also said Pinnacle made a major push on election day by busing in employees from its Lake Charles and Shreveport casinos to wave signs at major intersections around Baton Rouge.

Pinnacle spokeswoman Pauline Yoshihashi said that about 200 company employees did come to Baton Rouge on election day to help get out the vote.

“But we had a lot of other people out there too today, including paid campaign workers and volunteers,” Yoshihashi said.

Pinnacle’s proposed casino would be larger than the two existing downtown casinos  combined. Unlike the existing boats, which have multiple decks, Pinnacle’s plan calls for a single-deck, 70,000-square-foot casino with room for 1,500 slot machines and 50 table games.

Pinnacle claims its proposed South Baton Rouge casino resort,  Rivière, will create 1,200 jobs with an annual payroll of $33 million and purchase $13 million in goods and services from local businesses each year.

But the existing Baton Rouge boats claim much of Pinnacle’s economic impact would come at their expense.

A study by economist Loren Scott for the two downtown casinos suggests that at least one of the existing boats would likely shut down if Pinnacle built its new $250-million casino on a 540-acre tract at Gardere Lane and the Mississippi River.