Quote:
Originally Posted by the urban politician
By Thompson Center I'm assuming you're all proposing to demo it and build a new casino there?
Because the existing Thompson Center gets tons of sunlight. My understanding is that casino operators generally don't want to have windows.
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Traditionally, no... but the research supporting that decision was
debunked after Steve Wynn went a different direction at the Bellagio, design-wise, and made a killing. It's more a question of whether the casino operator has an old-school mentality or if they are open to new thinking.
Even a new-school operator would probably close off the exterior walls, but that's more for the same reason a grocery store or department store would do it. There's nothing sinister going on - they don't hate sunlight or want you to lose track of time - it's just that the perimeter of the room is a prime place for merchandise, or slot machines. You wouldn't want to squander that on windows.... but skylights, or clerestory windows that sit up above a row of machines, are totally fine under the new school of thinking.
Because a gaming floor can have partial windows but not full windows, it's better situated above or below grade in a city, but definitely not right at street level.
At the Thompson Center, I imagine a basement-level gaming floor - with blank walls but ample light from above - might do quite nicely. The upper level could be surrounded by fine dining to create the kind of Italian piazza that Helmut Jahn was imitating. Unfortunately, I don't know if the building is large enough to accommodate the 4,000 gaming positions authorized by law.