Norfolk has won a legal battle in court against Cordish Companies, which alleged it should have first right to develop a casino in the city. The developer also sought damages over Norfolk’s plans to establish a casino in partnership with the Pamunkey Indian Tribe.
The Court of Appeals of Virginia upheld a lower court decision dismissing the $100 million lawsuit that Cordish Companies brought against Norfolk, Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority, and City Attorney Bernard Pishko, reports Daily Press.
Baltimore-based Cordish revamped the Waterside District in 2013. But when Norfolk leaders began to have conversations about bringing a casino to the city, Cordish-owned Norfolk District Associates argued that it should have had the exclusive right to develop and operate a casino in the city based on its Waterside development agreement and lease.
In 2019, Norfolk approved a land deal with the Pamunkey Indian Tribe that set the stage for the development of the HeadWaters Resort and Casino next to Harbor Park, less than a mile from Waterside. Those plans are still ongoing.
Norfolk District Associates sued in 2021 alleging the city breached its contract and actively sought to exclude Waterside from being the site of a casino. The case was based on definitions of a 2013 lease agreement between city leaders and the Waterside developers about the potential support and rights of the development to be the home of a future casino.
While the case was dismissed by a Richmond Circuit Court judge in 2022, Cordish and its lawyers appealed. And now, in a 12-page ruling issued last week, the Court of Appeals of Virginia affirmed the lower court decision, finding the written agreement over Waterside “does not place an obligation on the City and NRHA to use NDA to develop a casino,” as reported by the Daily Press.
“All of NDA’s assignments of error, and the underlying claims, turn on the premise that the City and NRHA breached enforceable contractual obligations owed to NDA under the lease agreement,” wrote Judge Richard Y. AtLee on behalf of the three-judge panel. “Because we find that section 10.2.1 was an unenforceable agreement to agree and a casino was not a permitted use under the terms of the agreement, we find that the circuit court did not err in sustaining the demurrers.”
Cordish Companies runs Waterside District and wants to develop a casino in Norfolk.
“We are pleased to have the Court confirm that Cordish and [John] Lynch sued the city, city attorney, and NRHA without a basis,” Pishko said in a statement, retrieved by the above-mentioned media.
The ruling was released Tuesday after another round of oral arguments were heard in December. The second round was agreed upon by the lawyers after one of the judges who heard the first appeal, Judge Doris Henderson Causey, had to recuse herself due to a conflict of interest.
The judges who heard the new round of oral arguments in December and made the ruling were Judges AtLee, James W. Haley, Jr., and Dominique A. Callins, according to court documents.