The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has approved a permit for the city that will allow the owners of the Portofino Resort to make changes along the city’s floodwall as part of the construction of a 30,000-square-foot land-based casino adjacent to the hotel at 1310 Mulberry St.

The Board of Mayor and Aldermen Monday authorized Mayor George Flaggs Jr. to send a letter to Portofino officials about the Corps’ approval and the agency’s conditions for the permit, which is good for two years.

According to the letter, Portofino’s work around the floodwall cannot prevent the city from installing stop logs, or panels, or performing maintenance on the floodwall; and any of the company’s proposed improvements along the floodwall, including demolition, must be approved by the planning and zoning commission. City community development officials said Portofino has not applied for a variance to build the casino.

“It’s been 13 months to get there, but we got there,” Portofino owner Greg Stewart said. “We were informed about the conditions and we agreed to them last week.”

Stewart said the Portofino Hotel was closed Monday for about seven months while work is underway. He said some hotel employees were kept on, while others were laid off with a severance package. He did not have the number of workers laid off.

“We’re making improvements,” he said. “We’re redoing the outside and painting the building. We’re having to demolish everything that’s adjacent to the floodwall, and when we’re done with that, we’re going to rebuild the restaurant while we’re waiting for the plans for the casino.”

He anticipates the state Gaming Commission will grant a casino license within the next 90 days.

Stewart said the casino would be a one-story building that will connect with the hotel.

“And we’re asking the city for permission to build a waterpark to the south of the hotel,” he said.

If the casino is built, it would become the city’s fifth casino and the first built since 2008.

Portofino’s details for the casino filed with the Gaming Commission indicate a permanent structure on about 11.5 acres, which means the developers plan to comply with a state law passed after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 that allows casinos to be built up to 800 feet from water.

Harrah’s Casino operated at the site from 1993 until 2003, when it sold its Vicksburg property to Columbia Sussex. The names on the casino and hotel changed to Horizon until the fall 2010, when Tropicana Entertainment, which was part of Columbia Sussex and operated Horizon, went bankrupt and closed the casino.

In 2011, the venue reopened as Grand Station, but closed in March 2012 amid bankruptcy.

From 1993 until the Grand Station bankruptcy, the casino was located on a barge built to look like a riverboat that was moored in the Yazoo Diversion Canal next to the hotel and surrounded by a cofferdam.

The former casino vessel was auctioned for scrap metal in April 2013 and hauled away. Portofino Hotel operates in the same structure as the previous three casino hotels, an edifice owned by Vicksburg Hotel LLC, also based in Biloxi.