Jackpot Junction multi-million dollar remodeling ahead of schedule

^{By Joshua Dixon
Staff Writer
Posted Nov. 13, 2014 @ 12:01 am}
 

Five months ago, Shawn Smyth left his retirement home in Florida to move to Minnesota and supervise the final stages of Jackpot Junction’s remodeling. “I’ve been in the casino business since I was 17 years, and I just turned 66,” said Smyth, Jackpot’s general manager. “I’ve supervised over 20 major casino expansions, and this is by far the most complicated. There are seven separate phases we have to get through. The early phases were the infrastructure ones the public didn’t see.” And how is the remodeling going? Standing in the new gaming room last week, Smyth said, “We opened up this section 10 weeks early, on Sept. 29th. In 40 years in the casino business, I’ve never seen a project open 10 weeks early. “This was a very difficult project. Any time you try to remodel a business that’s in operation, it gets very complicated,” said Smyth. “We took everything out of the old building, tore the old building down, and two days later we were moving into the new one. That just isn’t done.” According to Gabe Prescott, Jackpot’s director of operations, the new remodeling was first proposed by the Lower Sioux Community leaders four years ago. “The facility is 30 years old this month, and the Lower Sioux Community decided to refresh and update the look,” said Smyth. Smyth said a main goal is to consolidate basically the same amount of square footage into a space that’s much more convenient for the patrons.   Click here to read the complete story!