Churchill Downs Inc. plans to sell Arlington Park land

CHICAGO – Arlington Park’s days are numbered, with the iconic suburban Chicago racetrack likely to be sold, presumably for redevelopment, in the not-too-distant future.

Bill Carstanjen, chief executive officer of Churchill Downs Inc., said during a Thursday conference call discussing CDI’s second-quarter results that the land on which Arlington sits will at some point be sold.

“We’ve been patient and thoughtful and constructive with the parties up in that jurisdiction, but long term, that land gets sold,” Carstanjen said.

Arlington was merged into CDI’s holdings in 2000 as Arlington chairman Richard Duchossois became a leading CDI stockholder. In 2015, CDI privately purchased a million shares of CDI stock from the Duchossois Group, and Duchossois’s influence over Arlington’s operations has since dimmed.

Last summer, given the chance to apply for a casino license at Arlington, CDI declined. Arlington initially said it would conduct sports betting, which gives nothing back to racing purses, but on the Thursday conference call, Carstanjen said CDI’s Illinois sports-betting interests would be confined to Rivers Casino. CDI has a majority share in Rivers, the state’s largest casino, which is located about 13 miles from Arlington.

Arlington was among the last American racetracks to reopen following the coronavirus pandemic, only beginning a 30-day race meet on July 23 after belatedly striking a two-year contractual agreement with the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association. There were signs CDI had minimal interest in conducting racing at Arlington this summer – such as when Arlington president Tony Petrillo publicly stated as late as June that racing without spectators wasn’t feasible for the track – but Arlington eventually opened its stables for a brief, stakes-free, three-days-per-week meet. The contract with the ITHA extends through the 2021 racing season, but Carstanjen indicated a meet next year is far from certain, saying “we have an agreement to run a 2021 race meet if we elect to do so.”

Carstanjen did float the possibility of moving the racing license from Arlington to a different facility in the state.

“We want to work constructively with all the constituencies in the market to see if there’s an opportunity to move the license or otherwise change the circumstances so that racing can continue in Illinois,” he said.

CDI also owns Quad City Downs, located on the western edge of Illinois in East Moline. Carstanjen offered no further details about where and how the racing license might be moved and said he wouldn’t comment on the call regarding a timeframe for selling the Arlington parcel.

Hawthorne casino license moves forward

The Illinois Gaming Board on Thursday unanimously voted to move forward a casino license application filed by Hawthorne Race Course.

Hawthorne’s applicants – its “owners and key personnel,” the track said in a press release – were determined by the board to be suitable for the licensing process to move forward. Final approval is not assured, but this was an important step that comes nearly a year after the application was initially filed. Gaming board decisions on casino applicants last summer were expected much sooner, but the scope of the gambling expansion legislation passed in June 2019 bogged down the licensing procedures, and the coronavirus pandemic further slowed the gears of the Illinois bureaucracy.

The board also voted to approve Hawthorne’s sports-betting operations, which can become operational well before a casino might open. Hawthorne, pending final licensing approval, has begun the early steps of transforming its aging facility. The track, which sits on the border of Cicero and Stickney and on the edge of Chicago proper, plans major upgrades to existing structures and intends to begin the project in earnest this September with hopes of opening its casino by the end of 2021.