Long Beach Casino Developer Amends Plans, Targets Harbor for Resort
Posted on: August 11, 2025, 09:46h.
Last updated on: August 11, 2025, 10:07h.
- Officials in Long Beach, Miss. continue to seek a casino
- A casino bidder has revised his project plans
- Mississippi’s Long Beach sits along the Gulf Coast
The developers behind a proposed casino resort in Long Beach, Miss., have amended their plans.
Last November, the Long Beach Board of Aldermen unanimously approved a city lease agreement with Long Beach Harbor Resorts, LLC. The agreement would have rented a portion of the city-owned property that’s currently home to Parrish’s Restaurant & Lounge to the casino entity, which would allow the firm to operate slot machines and table games across Beach Boulevard/US 90 on the former Kmart site.
Long Beach Harbor Resorts, however, failed to enter into the lease agreement since it was authorized nine months ago. Now, the company is presenting a new project, with a casino located south of the highway surrounding Long Beach Harbor.
Last week, the Long Beach Aldermen considered the revised pitch. They entered a private session, and when they returned, announced that no vote on the possible lending of the marina for the casino resort would be held, as too many unanswered questions remain.
The aldermen said the matter would be revisited next month.
Altering Plans
Long Beach is located southwest of Biloxi and Gulfport and northeast of Bay St. Louis, where many casinos operate. Long Beach has long sought its own Gulf Coast casino to spur its economy and generate local tax revenue.
Long Beach Harbor Resorts and its proposed Southern Sand Casino was to end those dreams and turn them into reality. Long Beach Harbor Resorts is led by local businessman Jim Parrish, who owns Parrish’s Restaurant and The Inn at Magnolia Alley in Bay St. Louis.
Parrish’s Southern Sand Casino plan included statutory minimums of a 300-room hotel and a 40K-square-foot casino. In exchange for the city lease to allow such a commercial development, Long Beach Harbor Resorts would have been required to pay the city $500K a year for the first five years after the casino opened, and then share 1% of its annual gross gaming revenue thereafter.
“This is our opportunity,” Mayor George Bass said in November. “If we miss this, we may never get this opportunity again.”
Parrish didn’t disclose an investment budget, how many slot machines and table games the casino might house, or a management company. He ultimately folded on the Kmart site in favor of Long Beach Harbor. Few details about the subsequent project have yet been made public.
Project Odds
Speaking with WXXV, Long Beach Alderman-at-Large Donald Frazer said the local government had many unanswered questions during Thursday’s meeting. They included how the new casino site would impact boaters.
Frazer’s comments seemed to suggest that the aldermen are open to leasing Long Beach Harbor for the Southern Sand Casino.
We’ve talked with the investors, and they are going to supply additional parking, even closer than where the current boat parking is. So, we’re still working back and forth — there are some questions we still need answered before we put it to a vote,” Frazer said.
If the Long Beach Aldermen and Long Beach Harbor Resorts come to a lease agreement, the project would then go before the Mississippi Gaming Commission for consideration.
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