Mashantucket — Foxwoods Resort Casino on Friday will mark the completion of renovations to its Great Cedar Casino, one of its key gaming areas.

A grand opening for the space will include giveaways and free play throughout the day.

The Great Cedar Casino, on Foxwoods’ retail concourse, features the Play Arena, an interactive gaming center that allows gamblers to play roulette, blackjack and mini-baccarat from one of 29 “play stations” without having to move from machine to machine. A video wall displays the roulette wheel and the cards as a dealer deals them. The wall also can display animation, streaming video and live sporting events.

Hundreds of new slot machines and dozens of new table games also were installed as part of the renovations.

“It’s been down to some extent for the last eight or nine months,” Felix Rappaport, the Foxwoods president and chief executive officer, said of the gaming area. “We put in a high-speed slots floor with all the technology that entails. We laid tens of thousands of miles of cable, changed the carpet, changed a lot of the slots chairs, reconfigured our high-limit lounge and added our first electronic table game arena.”

“It’s kind of like a party,” he said, describing the atmosphere the Play Arena creates.

By changing the lighting, the music and video presentations, the mood of the space can be altered. Plans call for a bar to be added in the fall, Rappaport said.

When construction related to the renovation began in October, some 550 slot machines and two-dozen table games were removed from service. By the end of the year, the area had been re-opened to the public.

Foxwoods, whose slots inventory peaked at more than 8,200 machines in late 2008, has operated, on average, about 4,100 machines in recent months.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com