Churchill plans $300 million renovation project; third quarter income drops
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Churchill Downs will renovate an existing grandstand-seating area around the track’s first turn in a project with an estimated cost of $300 million, the track’s parent company announced on Wednesday.
The project is the first Churchill has announced since the company abruptly scuttled three previously announced projects with an estimated total cost of $920 million, citing “increasing uncertainty surrounding construction costs related to tariffs and trade disputes, as well as current macro-economic conditions.”
The projects were shelved in late April, two months after they were first unveiled.
The new project, called Victory Run, will replace 6,400 ground-level outdoor seats around the first turn with a four-story building that includes suites and covered box seating, along with indoor and outdoor dining areas. The area will have a capacity for 7,800 ticketholders, Churchill said.
The project, which is set to begin following the 2026 Kentucky Derby, will be fully complete by the 2028 Derby, Churchill said. The track plans to offer “an interim upgraded seating experience” in the area for the 2027 Derby with “temporary seating and amenities.”
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One of the scuttled projects would have converted the same area and surrounding areas into a larger covered seating structure, replacing 11,500 existing seats with 13,000 seats. That project was the most expensive of the three projects Churchill had previously announced, with an estimated budget of $465 million.
Churchill announced the project on the same day the company reported net income in the third quarter of $39.2 million, down sharply from its third-quarter net income in 2024, which was $65.4 million. For the quarter, Churchill took a $31 million after-tax impairment charge related to the “gaming rights” of its properties in New Hampshire.
In a release, Churchill did not expand on the nature of the impairment charge. Company officials are scheduled to discuss the third-quarter results on a conference call on Thursday morning.
Churchill has recently bought several properties in New Hampshire, and the company is currently operating temporary casino facilities in the state. According to the financial statements, net revenue in New Hampshire has been $11.1 million in the first nine months of this year, compared to $9.6 million in the first nine months of last year.
For the third quarter, net revenue for all of the company’s operations was $683.0 million, up 8.7 percent, or $54.5 million, compared to revenue of $628.5 million in the third quarter last year.
Revenue from “live and historical racing,” which includes proceeds from the company’s casino operations in Kentucky and Virginia and all of its racetracks, was up $52.5 million, from $247.5 million in the third quarter of 2024 to $300 million this year. Conversely, revenue from its casino operations in other states was down $4.7 million, from $269.7 million in the third quarter of last year to $265 million this year.
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