Monday marked the 10th anniversary of the opening of what is now known as MGM Northfield Park.
With a ceremonial guitar smash, the Hard Rock Rocksino opened its doors to the public a week before Christmas in 2013. Plans for the slots-only facility were announced in 2012, a partnership between Northfield Park and Hard Rock International to build from the ground up the facility that offered a Vegas-style experience.
"We could have done just the slots in the box as the saying goes. That's not what the brand Hard Rock's about. If you look at our success, it really is about trying to create a destination," said Jim Allen, the chairman of Hard Rock International.
A $268 million destination that people would be willing to drive from both Cleveland and Akron to experience. That's why, unlike other gambling offerings, this place would boast fine dining and entertainment, and national acts would appear in the 2,000-seat theater.
"It's a portable stage, so it allows us to move the stage into the center of the room if we want to do mixed martial arts or boxing or some other events like that," former Rocksino president Jon Lucas recalls.
The construction of the 200,000-square-foot Rocksino provided an economic boost to this part of northern Summit County at just the right time because it came as the Ford Stamping Plant, literally next door in Walton Hills, was preparing to close its doors for good. Unemployment at the time was just over 7 percent, so when the Hard Rock held a job fair to fill the roughly 1,000 Rocksino jobs, people lined up in the rain just for a shot.
When the doors opened on December 18, 2013, it was an immediate hit with customers.
"Just the decor itself, it belongs in Vegas."
The Rocksino put up Vegas-type numbers that first month and continued to do so every month since becoming instantly the state's most lucrative gambling establishment, which led to its sale in 2018 to MGM for just over a billion dollars.
Since opening its doors a decade ago, more than $26 billion has been wagered here, generating revenue of nearly $2.4 billion.
