Two proposed gaming developments in Vicksburg cleared hurdles Tuesday in the multistep process toward construction.

The Vicksburg Zoning Board gave its approval to sites proposed for the Pot of Gold Casino and by Lakes Gaming. The casinos, if built, will be the city’s fifth and sixth and will be the first to open since 1994.

Both developers still have to get site approval from the Mississippi Gaming Commission as well as pass muster at other hearings before construction can begin.

About 20 people attended the public hearing before the Zoning Board, but none raised any specific objections. One person, Carlton Rone, 1120 Polk St., did raise questions about the legality of the site selected by Lakes.

“The only way river water gets up into here is when the gauge gets up to 38 feet,” Rone said.

Jim Belisle, who is promoting a golf course-centered riverside development in conjunction with the Lakes project, said the property set back off the Mississippi River south of the Baxter Wilson Steam Electric Plant gets water from the river about 30 percent of the year and meets the requirements of a navigable waterway under the Gaming Commission rules.

Belisle was previously associated with two Warren County projects that did not come to fruition. The first, for U.S. 61 North on the Yazoo River near Redwood, failed due to a lack of financing. The second was an effort to add a racetrack-centered development on the Big Black River near Bovina. Financing was ample, but the site was deemed unsuitable by a split vote of the Mississippi Gaming Commission, triggering a court fight in which the commission was ultimately upheld by the state Supreme Court.

“Lakes has already done all the hydraulics work here and understands what they’ll have to prove to the Gaming Commission,” Belisle said.

Tim Cope of Lakes Entertainment, a Minnesota company, said the 160-acre site near Magnolia Road will be accessed from U.S. 61 South, but gave few details about the proposal. According to previous statements from the company, the development will include a hotel and a 40,000-square-foot gaming vessel.

Plans for the Pot of Gold Casino at 1380 Warrenton Road call for a six-story hotel, 45,000-square-foot gaming area, public park and floating pavilion. John Barrett, a partner in the development, said the new casino will be just north of the existing Rainbow Hotel and Casino.

Barrett also responded to questions concerning the abandoned Barrett Refining Corp., 2222 Warrenton Road, which he formerly owned.

“I have done everything I can to get (the new owners) to act responsibly with that property and, if it was still in my control, it wouldn’t look like that,” Barrett said.

The Vicksburg Board of Mayor and Aldermen signed a deal last month to remove most of the tanks and buildings for $1. That work is expected to be finished in about six months.

Danny McDaniel, a Jackson attorney working with Lakes, said the next step is to get on the state commission’s agenda. The next Gaming Commission meeting is at 10 a.m. Feb. 17 in Jackson.

If the site is approved, the casino developers will also have to get development plans approved and will have to show that at least half of the investment plans will be land-based features such as hotels and restaurants, not gaming space.

The city will also have to approve development plans before construction can begin. The last step is the approval-to-proceed issued by the Gaming Commission.

The entire process can take up to two years and include several more public hearings.

“We’re here really in the first of many steps … to get the Gaming Commission’s approval,” Cope said.

River-based casinos have been legal in Vicksburg since a 1990 state law and a 1992 countywide referendum. More than a dozen projects were initially announced, but since the fourth, Rainbow, opened in the summer of 1994, most operators have said they do not believe the local market can support a fifth casino.

The state regulates 29 casinos along the Mississippi River and the Gulf Coast, including the four in Vicksburg. Separately, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians operates two casinos near Philadelphia.

Several other projects across the state are also already under way in various stages of the process.

Two votes were held in Warren County, the first in 1990, when gaming was defeated by 958 of the 15,358 votes cast, and the second in 1992, when gaming was approved by 651 of 15,270 ballots cast.

The first casino, the Isle of Capri, opened in August 1993; Harrah’s opened in November 1993; Ameristar, February 1994; and Rainbow, July 1994. Columbia Sussex, a Kentucky-based company, last year bought the Harrah’s Vicksburg property, which now operates under the name Horizon Casino.

Since, the casinos have generated nearly $80 million in local tax revenue to the city, county and school district.