Jacksonville Kennel Club purchases Garden Ridge store in Arlington to open Poker Room in addition to its greyhound racing track
The Jacksonville Kennel Club has purchased the Garden Ridge store at 201 Monument Road, Arlington, near the Regency Square mall and plans to develop a poker room there. The building is currently
being used by the Garden Ridge home store but the store has already announced its closing and started the clearance sale.
The Garden Ridge company has announced that it is searching for another location to open a new store in Jacksonville as this one will shut down in August.
It will then be handed over to the Jacksonville Kennel Club, owned by Jacksonville Greyhound Racing.
The club placed a state application for opening the poker room to Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation in May this year and the application is still under review.
Spokesman for Jacksonville Greyhound Racing, Michael Munz, says that he is hopeful that the application will be approved as they are following the proper process.
Meanwhile work on the design of the facility has begun, but it is still undecided as to whether the existing building will be simply renovated or demolished and a new structure be put in place.
Either way the size of the structure which is 109,000-square-feet will remain unchanged.
The Jacksonville Greyhound Racing runs two other facilities, Orange Park Kennel Club
and St. Johns Greyhound Park.
Orange Park Kennel Club
comprises a greyhound racing track and a poker room and St. Johns Greyhound Park, also has a poker room along with a greyhound racing track.
Similarly the new facility will have a 40 table poker room too, which will provide employment to around 200 people. It might have a simulcast betting facility for greyhound racing like the
Orange Park Kennel Club and a restaurant but neither of the decisions are final yet.
The price at which the club acquired the building had not been disclosed but the last time it was purchased in 1997, it cost the buyers $7.9 million.
The economic impact of the opening of this facility will be great as the average employee salary at the facility is forecasted to be around $50,000 a year. The club has not yet begun looking
for employees. This search will start in August.
If everything goes according to the club’s plans then the facility will be inaugurated in spring next year to operate alongside the club’s two existing poker rooms, to bring in revenue to cover
up from the declining greyhound racing industry.
Tags: