Rockford’s $310M Hard Rock Casino’s Construction Starts

After two long years of waiting, the construction work of Rockford’s Hard Rock Casino has finally begun. On Wednesday, the officials of the casino held a ground-breaking. Almost three years have passed since the Illinois law cleared the development of Rockford’s casino, putting the city in a competitive race against the contemporary casino project being worked on in Beloit. Hard Rock had been operating a temporary casino at 610 N Bell School Road, at Rockford. Rockford Area Convention and Visitor Bureau’s CEO and the president, John Groh says that the Hard Rock brand and the casino’s location, just on I-90, are going to draw a lot of people to the city. He has said that currently, the opening of the casino itself is seeing visitors from beyond 90 miles and also across the country. Also, he believes that once the casino opens the number of visitors is only going to increase. The area where the people are coming from will increase in time to come. According to the projections, the project will be worth $310 million. The president of Hard Rock Rockford, Geno Iafrate, says that the casino is going to require almost 1000 employees. Recently, Hard Rock International has raised wages across the company, stating that the wage increase will start on September 22nd and is going to vary from one position to the other. However, it can be up to $3/hour for hourly employees and $5,000 annual for salaried people. Iafrate believes that the team must have a livable wage. He said that it can help them get a better place to live and provide for their family. According to him, they are spending more than $100 million on voluntary increasing the minimum start wage throughout the company. Locally, it is going to cost the casino a tad more than $2 million to fulfilling the commitment of giving out higher wagers. Tom McNamara, The Rockford Mayor said that it is a proud moment for him to witness the project’s impact. Until now, it has provided 800-1000 construction jobs and 600-800 full-time jobs. At present, more than 200 kids are attending Northern Illinois University for free for four years, 70% of them for first-generation college-going students, and 70% of them are kids of color. It is nothing but good for Rockford. Photo by Kevin Haas/Rock River Current