Racino Wins First Approval To Operate In Tinley Park

TINLEY PARK, IL — A proposed horse racing track and casino won state approval Tuesday to operate in Tinley Park next December.

The Illinois Racing Board approved the 12 dates Playing in the Park LLC requested between Dec. 6 and Dec. 29, 2020.

Playing in the Park plans to offer harness racing three nights a week on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays on the site of the former Tinley Park Mental Health Center. Rick Heidner, a real estate developer, and Timothy Carey, the general manager of Hawthorne Race Course in Stickney, are listed as officers. Heidner also is an owner of Gold Rush Gaming, and he was a partner of Melody Square LLC, which proposed building a sweeping, largely age-restricted community on the mental health center site. That project was set aside earlier this year to make way for a racino instead.

The approval is a first but major step in bringing the racino to Tinley Park. It will also need approval from the Illinois Gaming Board to operate slot machines and other games.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Maywood Park was the last track to open, and it began operating in 1946. It closed along with Balmoral Park in 2015 as revenues declined with the sagging popularity of horse racing.

Tinley's racino is meeting opposition by a group of south suburban mayors who object to what they believe is a fast-tracking of a racino after they have fought to build a casino — without horse racing — in their region for years.

The group is asking the state legislature to put the racino on hold so that municipalities can apply for a casino that this year's gambling expansion now permits them to build.

“After waiting over 15 years, many towns have been planning for a casino — not a racino — and can’t wait any longer,” the Sun-Times quoted Matteson Mayor Sheila Chalmers-Currin telling Racing Board members recently. “The Southland doesn’t have the time to wait for this long-awaited economic opportunity engine.”

Tinley Park officials meanwhile are preparing for the racino to be built in village boundaries. Earlier this month trustees amended two key zoning ordinances to permit a racing and gambling business in the village boundaries, paving the way for Playing in the Park to build on the former mental health center site.