VICKSBURG — The former Grand Station Hotel, closed since gambling ceased at Vicksburg’s waterfront when a casino left 16 months ago, has been sold to a Gulf Coast developer.
Vicksburg Hotel LLC, a Biloxi-based entity led by businessman Charles Lambert, purchased the 117-room hotel this month from Great Southern Investment Group Inc., according to land transaction records.
The Vicksburg Post reports the deal includes two parking garages that once accommodated casino patrons.
Talks start this week on the new ownership’s choice of a hotel brand for the property.
“We’ll meet with major brands and a designer,” Lambert said. “It’ll be completely refinished. It can’t look like a casino.”
Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said the sale would help the Vicksburg Convention Center, located a half-mile away.
“It’s a good thing how they want to develop here,” Flaggs said. “Vicksburg will be marketed in a way it’s never been marketed before.”
Built in 1993 by Harrah’s, the hotel has sat vacant and locked until interior cleanup crews arrived Friday.
The casino, a boat in a cofferdam, was sold three times between 1993 and 2009 before it closed in 2012 amid bankruptcy proceedings that remain active. It was auctioned for $10,000 in April to a scrap-metal dealer.
Lambert said he’ll meet with city officials to find ways around a “reverter clause” filed in the bankruptcy case to secure smaller rights of way in and around the hotel.
