North Bay casino to open in early 2022

Currently Gateway Casinos is hosting a two week long job fair and the casino is expected to add more than 200 jobs locally. Dec.12/21 (Jaime McKee/CTV News Northern Ontario)

NORTH BAY — Gateway Casinos says its new location in North Bay will open early in the New Year as it looks to hire 200 new staff.

"We’re hoping to open early in the New Year. We were very fortunate in terms of covid that we were fairly well along in this build," said Rob Mitchell, director of communications and public affairs with Gateway Casinos.

"We had purchased a lot of the construction materials and warehoused a lot of materials in advance of the lockdown really coming in at full force," added Mitchell.

Currently Gateway Casinos is hosting a two week long job fair and the casino is expected to add more than 200 jobs locally.

"There’s two reasons to get behind a casino in North Bay. Almost 300 jobs for our community, 300 jobs. We’re anticipating we’re going to receive between one and two million dollars per year depending on the revenue of the casino," said North Bay mayor Al McDonald.

"We’re always looking for innovative ways to create more revenue to reduce the taxes and here is a business that is going to generate between one and two million dollars to our city."

Right now, there’s no exterior construction happening, but Mitchell says staff are working on the inside of the building.

"Most of the build is happening internally. It’s infrastructure related and if you’ve been in a casino the wiring is critical so it is a lot of electrical work that is beneath the flooring, so that has to be installed and then also there’s all the kitchen amenities."

Mitchell hasn’t said what day the casino is set to officially open, but said he expects all staff to be hired by early in the New Year. Then, a ‘soft opening’ will take place before the casino is opened to the public.