Twin River’s New Hotel is On Track

From Michaela MacDonald of WPRI: Hotel at Twin River expected to open this summer

LINCOLN, R.I. (WPRI) — The one-time Lincoln Park greyhound track has come a long way in evolving its gambling and amenity offerings.

This summer, the casino now known as Twin River will open a hotel, and officials took reporters on a “hard hat” tour Tuesday morning to see the progress.

The hotel is a $30 million investment. Right now, it’s just a structure, and has employed 280 construction workers so far. The hope is that it’ll open by mid-August, when permanent jobs will kick in, “between 40 and 50 full-time equivalents to run and manage the hotel,” said John E. Taylor, Jr., the chairman of the board of Twin River Worldwide Holdings.

Like sprawling resort-casino complexes – the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Biloxi that Twin River’s parent company acquired in 2014 comes to mind – the Twin River hotel will be attached to the building where gaming is conducted, but it will only have 136 rooms and four floors. It will also sport a pool and a spa, according to Taylor.

“The casino design was really meant to fit in and be reflective of the community in which we live,” Taylor said. “You are not going to see a lot of neon or anything like that. We try to be sensitive” and match the surroundings, he said.

Taylor said this four-floor building is “phase one” – they’ll see if demand starts to pick up before deciding to build more hotel rooms.