Owners of Horizon Casino, still speaking through City Hall, offered a few more details on the immediate future of the downtown hotel and casino, saying a renovation is in the works despite appearances of a slow shutdown.

After initial reports that 20 to 100 casino employees were laid off Tuesday, Mayor Paul Winfield said Wednesday that 42 lost jobs in what Tropicana Entertainment CEO called a bid to “re-position” the Mulberry Street casino and hotel for improvements.

Specifics were few, but Winfield said plans involve replacing the carpet and improving dining facilities.

“They’re trying to get good at smaller things,” Winfield said, characterizing the tenor of his conversation with Tropicana. “They’re relearning some philosophies there, but they didn’t anticipate any more layoffs.”

While waiting for information he was told to expect on Tuesday, Winfield observed that the property has not been maintained since the current owners bought it six years ago. Two of three floors inside the 36,000-square-foot casino have been closed to foot traffic, apparently ending table games and downstairs entertainment. A public notice has been issued for redemption of Horizon gaming chips, used in table games, for a limited time. The layoffs leave Horizon with about 105 casino employees, based on the 147 reported to the Mississippi Gaming Commission for the third quarter.

Vicksburg has closer legal ties to Horizon, the only downtown casino, than any of the other four developed since 1993. In 1992, before the property opened as Harrah’s in November 1993, city officials sold a 2.95-acre portion of the public area of City Front to the 10-parcel development, according to details of the master agreement struck in 1993. The sale also included the two downtown parking garages built as part of a federal Urban Renewal program in the 1970s.

The master agreement was amended in October 2003 upon the casino’s purchase by Kentucky-based Columbia Sussex and renaming as Horizon. Eyed by Harrah’s as a prime spot for a second riverboat to head off competition, the boat ramp and parking area north of the casino is leased back to the city for $1 a year.

Under terms of the deal, an annual $562,939.56 payment is stretched over 30 years toward the full purchase of the property by 2033, plus a 1.5 percent cut of the casino’s net revenues. Amounts of the latter reportedly have shrunk in recent months. Documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in November show the firm estimates the base payments to more than double due to deferred rent liabilities. Tropicana, formerly part of Columbia Sussex, emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May.

In the event Horizon is closed, a termination clause in the agreement stipulates the city be paid a $450,000 termination fee, to be adjusted — most likely higher — by the Consumer Price Index. The real estate including pavilions, walkways, boardwalks and docking facilities used by customers to get from the hotel to the main boat and parking garages would revert to the city upon 12 months notice of the closure to the city. The hotel, main casino and all personal property in each would remain property of the developers.

The seven-story hotel is the closest to the Vicksburg Convention Center, and Winfield said he considered its continued operation is essential.

“I’d like to have the hotel as a convention center hotel,” Winfield said Tuesday while awaiting information on Horizon from Tropicana.

A deal worth about $35 million to sell Horizon to Nevada Gold & Casinos Inc. fell through in 2008 when the prospective buyers backed out. A restructuring plan following the bankruptcy allows Tropicana to rid itself of more than $2.4 million in debt by splitting into two entities, one to control Tropicana Casino & Resort on the Las Vegas Strip and another that will control remaining properties in New Jersey, Nevada, Indiana, Louisiana and Mississippi.

This week’s moves are somewhat similar to those announced at Horizon Tahoe Hotel and Casino in Lake Tahoe, Nev., as the bankruptcy case drew to a close. There, leases were assigned to a new entity, Lake Tahoe Realty I, LLC, to be owned by Columbia Sussex. Employment at the casino was cut by 75 as a result of the move, as well as elimination of table games and a downsizing of slots, according to a release on the company’s Web site.

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Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com