City officials Thursday offered the LST 325 first rights to the Dress Plaza location currently occupied by Tropicana Evansville’s riverboat casino should Indiana allow land-based gaming.
The World War II ship’s 10-year contract with the city to dock at Marina Pointe will expire at the end of 2015, and board members have expressed an interest in moving to a more accessible location — even if that means moving away from Evansville.
The city of Peoria, Ill., on the Illinois River, also is courting the historic ship but has yet to make a final offer, said Bob Hargrove, an LST 325 board member from Macon, Ga.
“The concerns are that our contract is up (after next year) and we are looking at trying to improve accessibility of the public to our ship. We want more people to come visit the ship,” Hargrove said. “I would like it more visible, wherever it goes. Everybody on the ship would like to see us more centrally located to Downtown Evansville. We’re on the fence. We haven’t made a decision.”
Hargrove said the LST isn’t drawing enough visitors to meet its monthly expenses. It makes more money in the few weeks it tours each year than it does during the time it is docked in Evansville.
“Evansville has been a very good city to us. We’ve done well, but we haven’t been able to draw enough people to pay for operations,” Hargrove said.
However, he said the ship’s supporters like the Ohio River location because of the ease of travel to connect with other waterways.
Mayor Lloyd Winnecke spent nearly six hours with the ship’s board Thursday, leading it on a METS trolley tour of Downtown.
The tour highlighted stops at the construction site of a Downtown convention hotel, the future location of the Indiana University School of Medicine Evansville campus and the Evansville Museum of Art, History and Science, with its recently opened Eykamp Pavillion addition.
“The growing vitality of Downtown is certainly another great reason for them to stay in Evansville,” Winnecke said.
Officials at the museum gave LST 325 board members a tour of its Home Front exhibit featuring the LST 325 and Evansville Shipyards where such ships were produced for the war effort as well as a preview of a new “Legacies of World War II” exhibit.
Museum Interim Director Mary Bower told the LST board about plans for signage directing visitors to a view of the ship and former shipyard location from the museum, and to highlight the ship with a display in the lobby.
Afterward, the board met in private with Winnecke and city officials to discuss what it would take to keep LST 325 in Evansville.
“We presented them with a five-year contract with an option to renew for another five-years,” Winnecke said.
Board members left the Mayor’s office carrying large red, white and blue gift bags.
“I think it is important to retain them. This is an important part of our fabric that needs to remain,” Winnecke said.
However, he acknowledged that Evansville has little control over where the LST can locate because of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers restrictions.
Winnecke said city officials have had “a couple meetings with Tropicana folks” during which the subject of moving the casino at Evansville to land if the Indiana General Assembly should ever approve and the governor sign into law land-based gaming. Doing so would allow them to better compete with surrounding casinos in the region.
“They like that concept. They had no problem with us offering that slip to somebody if all that happens, but it’s a domino effect,” he said.
In the meantime, city officials agreed to put into writing an offer to increase signage for the LST around town and improve the drive to its Marina Pointe dock.