Cordogan Clark & Associates were the casino and hospitality architects for the new Hollywood Casino gaming facilities. The pavilion building is the central docking facility for the Hollywood Casino gaming facility on the Fox River. This new facility opened with the look and feel of a land-based casino.
The four-story pavilion initially provided central docking, ticketing, restaurant, and administrative functions for riverboat entertainment at the north end of Stolp Island in Aurora, Illinois.
The banded precast concrete and granite-aggregate panels of the pavilion culminate in a forty-foot diameter glass dome above a four-story atrium marking the casino as a destination. The overall building massing is reminiscent of nineteenth century casino prototypes. The casino is developed and detailed with a construction-logic that expresses its radial geometry.
A new 70,000 SF dockside gaming facility is a horseshoe-shaped, permanently moored, floating structure that encircles the docking pavilion. This replaces two riverboats initially used for gaming. This new expansion project nearly doubles the amount of gaming space within the casino.
The Hollywood Casino received a PCI Special Recognition Award for Creative Design.