An illustration from 2003 of the second, much less exciting Waller Creek casino “riverwalk” concept — is that a climbing wall on the left? Image: GSC Architects / Austin History Center
Depending on how long you’ve been kicking around this rock, you might recall a time not so very long ago when every square inch of downtown Austin wasn’t considered quite as desirable in terms of real estate development potential — and the Rainey Street District, once a sleepy neighborhood home to a working-class population, is perhaps our best example of this history considering what it looks like now.
But in 1994, a few developers thought they knew just the thing to pump up our tourism numbers — a simple plan to dam Waller Creek, creating a reservoir several acres in size to the east of the Austin Convention Center where you’ll now find the Fairmont Austin. Once that basin was nice and full, these visionaries would then launch a floating riverboat-style casino in the water, a permanent gambling destination bringing the taste of Baton Rouge to Austin’s fair shores and attracting Vegas-style high rollers, Wayne Newton fans, and so on. This is ridiculous, but slightly less than you might think in terms of the law — at the time, the Texas Legislature was expected to soon consider bills legalizing riverboat gambling in the state.
Developers Robert Snow and Jim Rouse briefed Austin City Council in April 1994 about this oddball way to spend $80 million, with the help of longtime local architect and pioneering Sixth Street resident David Graeber, clearly no stranger to big ideas:
Flanking the riverboat on either shore would be 150,000 square feet of shops, restaurants, nightclubs, a music hall and other forms of entertainment that would bring in entertainers “like Wayne Newton — who’s not my kind of musician, but a lot of people do like him,”
Graeber said.
— Austin American-Statesman, April 27, 1994
Coverage of the floating riverboat casino plan in the Austin American-Statesman from April, 1994. I had to crop it, but that computer cost $1,599, not including the monitor. Click for a larger view. Image: Austin History Center
Yes, the downtown Austin of 1994 was a very different place, but that doesn’t mean this plan was exactly received with open arms. These days, the idea of damming Waller Creek would be considered environmentally catastrophic enough for public opinion to sink the whole boat, but it wasn’t super popular then either:
City Council Member Brigid Shea said she had reservations for environmental reasons about putting a dam on Waller Creek. But she said the creek is little more than “an open sewer” filled with trash. “It’s revolting, really bad,” she said.
— Austin American-Statesman, April 27, 1994
In terms of bad ideas, turning downtown Austin into Vegas is up there — and the failure of the Legislature to pick up the gambling legalization efforts left the whole Waller Riverboat plan, well, floating face down in the water. But the casino dream wasn’t dead, just resting, and nine years later it roared back to life in a new configuration dropping the only charming element of its design — the riverboat.
An aerial view of the 2003 version of the casino plan, with the various facilities following Waller Creek outlined in red. This area looks very different now, to say the least. Click for a larger view. Image: GSC Architects / Austin American-Statesman
The 2003 version of the plan, led by famous Frank Sinatra Jr. kidnapper (yes, really) Barry Keenan along with recognizable Austin names like former mayor Bruce Todd, Pete Winstead, Elizabeth Christian, and Juan Cotera, traded the riverboat for a $440 million casino-anchored riverwalk complex along Waller Creek, stretching from the north shores of Lady Bird Lake up to East Sixth Street and featuring shopping, dining, hotels, loft-style apartments and all the other Vegas accoutrements — gotta assume buffets were considered in there somewhere, but nobody bothered to mention them.
Statesman coverage of the second casino plan from February 2003. Image: Austin History Center
The plan died on the vine once more, seemingly for good this time in Austin, when the Legislature again failed to pass any legalized gambling bills — but more than two decades out from the original riverboat plan, our state’s casino lobby is still fighting for the right. These days, the edgiest thing you’ll see floating Austin’s waterways is a boozy popsicle stand, and that didn’t last too long either.
If we’re being completely honest, a floating casino would not look out of place in these concept renderings of a ridiculously upgraded Lake Walter E. Long. Still probably not a great idea, though. Image: City of Austin / Halff
Still, one opponent of the Waller plan presented an oddly prescient alternative. “If the gambling interests want a riverboat, let them use Decker Lake; don’t ruin downtown,” wrote Statesman columnist Jeff Nightbyrd in 1994. More than 26 years later, if Texas did legalize gambling and Austinites, however improbably, endorsed a floating casino plan, Decker Lake — now known as Walter E. Long Lake — might be the only place we’d allow it. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, mind you — it’s a pretty cheap flight to Vegas, and what’s nice about that is once you’re done, you get to leave.
A full-page cartoon lampooning the Austin casino concept from local illustrator Don Tate that appeared in the Austin American-Statesman on March 11, 2003. Image: Austin History Center
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