Plans by Lakes Entertainment to build a casino resort off U.S. 61 South remain alive – at least on paper.

Representatives of the company will appear before the Mississippi Gaming Commission Thursday to ask for a two-year extension on the site just beyond the end of Meadow Lane approved in 2005, Allen Godfrey, the commission’s deputy director said.

If the extension is approved, it will buy the Minnesota-based company more time to present a financing plan to state regulators, the third step and definitive in licensing casino operations in Mississippi.

Godfrey has said other firms have received extensions on proving their financial ability to complete a project, but commission members require an explanation for delays.

In the initial rounds of state licensure, sites and site plans are reviewed.

Lakes’ attorneys have visited commission offices periodically since late last year to discuss possible changes to the site.

Calls to Lakes Entertainment offices in Minneapolis were not returned.

When proposed, the $200 million development included a hotel and restaurant about five miles south of two other proposed casinos also going through regulatory processes with the state.

One, the $42 million Riverwalk Casino has until July 14 to show its financing plans to the three-member commission. Its site just north of Rainbow Casino was also approved in 2005.

Another, the Mississippi Bluffs casino and golf complex was allowed to change its site to be built on pilings instead of floating on the Mississippi River. A change in state law in 2005 says casinos no longer have to float. Later that year, following the destruction to coastal casinos by Hurricane Katrina, changes were made that allowed casinos to move 800 feet inland.

Vicksburg will be home to seven casinos if all three casinos move off the drawing board and construction is completed. Of the four operating, two have changed ownership this decade, Harrah’s to Horizon in 2003 and Isle of Capri to DiamondJacks in 2006.

Rainbow Casino remains up for sale by its parent company, Bally Technologies.

The four were the only casinos built out of about a dozen proposed along the river and the Yazoo Diversion Canal. Revenue from casino taxes fund about a third of the city’s budget and help pay for Warren County’s road paving and resurfacing efforts.

Under legislation in 1990 that legalized gaming in Mississippi, casinos may only be in counties that border the Mississippi River or the Gulf of Mexico. Casinos operated by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw near Philadelphia, in Neshoba County, are not required to report tax revenue to the state.