Water from the Mississippi River on Tuesday gave a lift to Ameristar Casino, the city’s largest gambling boat, which will become the first of the area’s four casinos to take advantage of a change in state law allowing otherwise floating casinos to sit on pilings.

In a process expected to take four months, the Mississippi’s waters will raise the massive, 16 million-pound vessel 2 feet and it will rest on a concrete foundation held together by a network of more than 100 60-foot reinforced steel beams.

Casino officials said the decision to lift the boat and have it rest on a foundation is a change of direction from an earlier plan to replace the basin liner of the cofferdam in which the casino floats.

&#8220We about had a contract signed, but then Katrina hit. We just kind of switched gears,” said Gael Waldron, corporate director of construction for Ameristar Casinos Inc.

In July 2005, less than two months before Hurricane Katrina, a law went into effect in Mississippi that allowed dockside gambling to move to permanent structures.

Ameristar general manager Ray Neilsen said the casino received approval for the work from the Mississippi Gaming Commission this year.

&#8220We’re OK to put it there,” he said. &#8220There will still be water under the facility.”

The &#8220piling law,” as it is known, is separate and distinct from another one passed by the Mississippi Legislature in October 2005 that approved casinos to move up to 800 feet inland. That law only applies to Mississippi’s storm-battered coast and does not give a green light for those along the Mississippi River to do the same.

One of the three casinos in the regulatory phase is also set to be built on pilings along the river if current plans hold, that being the Lakes Entertainment project slated to be built between U.S. 61 South and the river near Meadow Lane.

When complete, the raising project will increase the size and scope of Ameristar’s estimated $150 million expansion.

&#8220It added about another $8 million to it,” Neilsen said.

One piece of the renovation, an 1,100-space parking deck is about half complete, with the finishing touches expected to be added by mid-summer 2007, Neilsen said.

A &#8220connector room” will link the enhanced parking lot to a raised casino and will house a VIP room, two restaurants, a poker room and gaming space to accommodate about 8,000 more slots.

The most visible piece to Ameristar’s renovation puzzle will be a 14-story, 400-room hotel to begin after the garage is done. Neilsen said the hotel will still be located just south of the casino barge but will not likely be built before 2008 or perhaps longer.

&#8220(Construction) always takes longer than you want it to,” Neilsen said.

A renovation of Ameristar’s current hotel across Washington Street is ongoing and should be done by July 2007, he said.

Additionally, Ameristar has purchased several parcels along Washington Street between Interstate 20 and Confederate Avenue in the past nine months. Most notable among them is the soon-to-be-former Goldie’s Trail Bar-B-Que restaurant at 4127 Washington. It remains unclear what role the acquired properties will play in the casino’s expansion.

Neilsen has said that expanding the amenities at Ameristar, long the market-share leader among the four casinos established here in 1993 and 1994, is key to keeping Vicksburg viable as a gaming market.