Aims to start building project this year: Creative Casinos, which has the license to build Louisiana’s 15th and final riverboat casino, is seeking to raise $485 million to build a gambling resort in Lake Charles. The company, which is owned by Daniel Lee, the former CEO of Pinnacle Entertainment, has hired Morgan Stanley and Jeffries Group to help raise the money for the casino, according to Bloomberg News. Lee is set to sign a construction agreement today with W.G. Yates & Sons Construction to build the proposed Mojito Pointe resort. Plans are to start building Mojito Pointe this year and to open the resort by 2013. Mojito Pointe, whose estimated building cost is $400 million, will include a riverboat gaming barge, a 400-room hotel, a golf course and a falconry of exotic birds.
Few spots still closed because of oil spill: The Louisiana Commission of Wildlife and Fisheries has voted to open the fall shrimp season for Louisiana at 6 a.m. on Aug. 22. The fall season, when big plump white shrimp are caught, is the most important shrimp harvest for Louisiana fishermen and generally runs into December. The commission set the season based on recommendations by state biologists and comments from the public. There are a few places on the coast—Bay Jimmy, Grand Terre Island and portions of the Mississippi River’s bird’s-foot delta—that remain closed because of the BP oil spill. Preliminary data shows that about 26.5 million pounds of shrimp were caught in Louisiana in the first six months of the year.
