Pickering casino construction close to completion Daily Commercial News. News Sport Region. Do you want to stay up to date of all the news about Pickering? One Toronto Gaming began the construction of Pickering Casino Resort in 2019 and is projected to open in two phases. The first phase is slated to open in 2020 and will feature a number of gaming and dining options, while the second phase will include a full scope of entertainment amenities and hotel offerings.

Richest People

This billionaire family is placing their biggest bet ever on a massive new entertainment complex, Durham Live

Steve Apostolopoulos standing on the site in Pickering, Ontario where his family hopes to build a $1.3 billion casino and entertainment complex. (Ryan Pfeiffer/Metroland)

At the corner of Church and Bayly streets in Pickering, Ont., sit 226 acres of grass, shrubs and a few clusters of trees next to Highway 401. It is a rare undeveloped patch of land in an area populated by low-slung strip malls and industrial buildings. The only structure on the site today is the Pickering Pentecostal Church. Soon, that humble house of prayer could be dwarfed by a sprawling tourist complex, anchored by a casino and a five-star hotel. The vision presented by the developer, the Apostolopoulos family from nearby Toronto, is akin to a mini Las Vegas. Kids will zip down slides at an indoor water park, or take in a movie at the 15-screen theatre. An open-air amphitheatre will host concerts during the warmer months, while a gleaming performing arts centre featuring an undulating glass facade could accommodate everything from symphony orchestras to comedians. Consumers will be drawn to the world-class retailers on site, and gourmet restaurants and pubs will be ready to feed the throngs of visitors. Across the street, the Apostolopoulos family plan to set up a movie and television production facility. (The Pentecostal church will remain at the southwestern end of the complex. “They nicely worked around us,” notes pastor Colin Gittens wryly.)

The proposed development is known as Durham Live, and it’s among the biggest real estate projects Pickering has ever seen—only the local nuclear plant is larger. It’s also the most significant development ever attempted by the Apostolopoulos family and their firm, Triple Group of Companies. The facility will bring in $600 million in total tax revenue and add more than $1 billion in GDP, according to an economic impact study commissioned by the company. “In the Greater Toronto Area, we thought there really wasn’t anything that could be considered a tourist destination that had the feel of a resort,” says Steve Apostolopoulos, son of company founder Andreas. (Steve’s two brothers, Jim and Pete, are also involved in the business.)

Durham Live would be an ambitious task for any developer. The price tag is at least $1.3 billion. Moreover, its successful completion requires support from the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, along with retailers and hotel chains. The Apostolopoulos family made their fortune by buying beaten-down buildings in undesirable areas, sprucing them up and filling them with tenants, primarily industrial and commercial users. It’s a low-profile and somewhat boring line of work. They’ve never done anything like Durham Live before.

The closest the family has come to this level of spectacle is their ownership of the Silverdome in Pontiac, Mich., the 82,000-seat stadium and former home of the Detroit Lions football team. When the family bought the Silverdome in 2009, their plan was to renovate the facility and attract a Major League Soccer franchise. It didn’t work out. The Silverdome has sat empty since 2013, becoming “a pitiful display of neglect and deterioration,” says Andy Meisner, treasurer for Oakland County, where Pontiac is located.

The derelict facility is an inauspicious monument to the family’s first foray into the world of sports and entertainment. But rather than retreat to their traditional line of business, the Apostolopoulos family is now attempting something even more ambitious. Maybe that’s hubris—unless it pays off.

It was the irresistible allure of a bargain that drew Andreas Apostolopoulos to the Silverdome. But that purchase is a cautionary tale of what can happen when a company steps outside its area of expertise. For those prone to reflection, it might hold lessons for how the Apostolopoulos family should approach Durham Live.

The stadium was built in 1975 for US$55.7 million at the peak of Detroit’s manufacturing might. It was home to the Detroit Lions and the Detroit Pistons, and hosted Pope John Paul II, Elvis Presley and Led Zeppelin. But Pontiac’s economy took a major hit as the auto industry declined. In 2002, when the Detroit Lions moved to another facility, the Silverdome was effectively shut down and remained empty for the next seven years.

By 2009, Pontiac’s finances were so dire the State of Michigan installed an emergency financial manager to stave off collapse. Pontiac owned the Silverdome, and the city spent $1.5 million every year just to keep it maintained. The financial manager felt the city urgently needed the Silverdome off its books and arranged an auction. Andreas participated by phone from Toronto. He offered $583,000. His was the winning bid.

Andreas Apostolopoulos always had a talent for watching every penny and had a keen business sense. He immigrated to Canada from Greece as a teenager in 1969, working in the kitchen at a Kentucky Fried Chicken before starting his own office-cleaning company, followed by a plastic bag manufacturing firm. Eventually, he got into real estate. Andreas has since amassed a large portfolio in and around Toronto. His company, Triple Group (named for his three sons), owns approximately 15 million square feet of industrial and commercial properties.

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He and his sons promised to spend $50 million to renovate the neglected Silverdome facility and secure an MLS franchise (they’re big soccer fans), bringing jobs back to Pontiac and jolting the economyto life. But negotiations with MLS fizzled out. Pontiac isn’t much of a soccer town to start with. “He probably got in over his head,” says Leon Jukowski, a former Pontiac mayor. “Everybody was pulling for the right thing to happen, but the problem is, when you get somebody who doesn’t understand this particular market, they’re going to have a rough row to hoe.”

The family did organize events such as boxing matches at the Silverdome, but in January 2013, the stadium’s iconic white inflatable roof developed a tear. As ice and snow piled on top of the structure, the roof gave way, and fragments of fabric were strewn around the stadium. The optimism surrounding the Silverdome quietly died. The next year, the family decided to auction off whatever was salvageable. Nearly everything of value was put on the block—the scoreboard, the seats, the turf, even the urinals. The copper wiring reportedly brought in $77,500.

Meanwhile, Pontiac wondered about the Apostolopouloses’ plans for the Silverdome. In January 2014, a new mayor, Deirdre Waterman, was elected. Reaching out to the company was one of her first acts of office. Arranging a meeting with Andreas was difficult owing to his schedule, and they sat down in May or June, she recalls. “It was just a perfunctory meeting,” Waterman says. “He indicated his original hope to have a soccer franchise did not pan out, and he did not have an alternative at that time.”

For some, the Silverdome became an eyesore. A local group called Citizens Against Blight took aim at the Apostolopoulos family. Mona Hofmeister, one of its founders, had a successful track record of pushing city officials to demolish dilapidated foreclosed homes and undertook a similar strategy with the Silverdome, urging the company to tear it down or fix it up. Her letters went unacknowledged, however. “It’s like a stab in the heart, because we’ve been working so hard to clean up the blight in Pontiac,” Hofmeister says.

The Apostolopoulos family opted not to repair the roof, and as the stadium was left exposed to the elements, its condition worsened. They did, however, allow a Red Bull–sponsored BMX biker to film a promotional video inside the Silverdome; the rider performed tricks on its decrepit field and waterlogged stands. Fabric from the roof was still scattered around the interior, the turf was torn up and some of the seats were smashed and piled on top of one another.

Despite appearances, the Triple Group was not interested in letting the stadium rot indefinitely. Back in February, it announced a design competition to re

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