Cities pan for casino goldDate: 10/4/2011 Oct. 5, 2011
By G. Michael Dobbs
Managing Editor
GREATER SPRINGFIELD — With anticipation growing that the Legislature will actually pass an expanded gaming bill that would establish three casino licenses for Massachusetts, there have been announcements of renewed interest in placing a casino in Chicopee and Springfield.
Holyoke and Palmer have both been communities long dedicated to seeking a casino and each have developers with plans for those areas, but now they might be facing competition within the region.
Thomas Walsh, spokesperson for Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno, explained that while Sarno has long advocated “a casino in the woods” approach — a resort outside of the city’s borders — he would look at any plan offered to the city.
Walsh confirmed reports that Penn National Gaming has been looking at the former Westinghouse site on Page Boulevard and had contacted Sarno, who referred them to the Economic Development office.
According to the company’s Web site, Penn National Gaming “owns, operates or has ownership interests in gaming and racing facilities with a focus on slot machine entertainment. The company presently operates 26 facilities in 18 jurisdictions, including Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, West Virginia, and Ontario, [Canada]. In aggregate, Penn National’s operated facilities feature approximately 29,000 gaming machines, approximately 600 table games, 2,400 hotel rooms and 1.1 million square feet of gaming floor space.”
Kathy Brown of the East Springfield Neighborhood Council said the Westinghouse site, which is currently being cleared, is owned by O’Connell Development Group of Holyoke, which had intended to develop a strip mall there.
She said that several weeks ago Penn National Gaming representatives contacted O’Connell about developing the site for a casino.
Brown said the local development company was “very surprised,” as were residents when they learned about the proposal at a neighborhood council meeting.
A casino on Page Boulevard, known for its traffic issues, is “certainly nothing I had envisioned,” Brown said.
She noted residents told the gambling representatives, “You can’t even talk to us until you know what you’re going to do with the traffic.”
A paramount issue for the neighborhood council is how a casino would affect existing businesses in the areas.
“We’re interested in protecting the business space and enhancing the businesses space we currently have,” Brown explained.
“I think this is the beginning of a very long road,” she added.
In Chicopee, Mayor Michael Bissonnette, who had been an early proponent for a casino in that city, reported on his Facebook page that a developer is now looking at the city.
Bissonnette wrote, “New casino law may be final in October with one guaranteed in Western Massachusetts. Any real proposal must show a specific site, a full resort-type plan for shops, restaurants, hotels, parking and all the infrastructure needed to support such a complex. An agreement with the host city must be made on tax revenue, mitigation costs and public safety. An investment of $550 million may be required and 2,000 jobs (from finance to housekeeping and everything in between) may be created. Then the host city must have a referendum on the whole plan with election costs paid by [the] developer.”
Forty-one people posted replies to the announcement, most of them favorable.
In Holyoke, the reaction to the legislation hasn’t been one of speeding up, but instead slowing down. Mayor Elaine Pluta asked the City Council on Sept. 26 to table any planned actions related to the proposed casino at the Wyckoff Country Club.
Pluta told Reminder Publications that she believes Holyoke “is still the best location” and that her administration will be promoting it.
Her concern, she explained, is for the city administration to do something prematurely that would be “getting everyone’s hopes up.”
The competition from other cities “makes us work harder,” she said.
Pluta stated in a press release, “Over the last several weeks, as casino legislation has moved through the Legislature, several development groups have approached my office to express an interest in being a preferred developer in a resort project with our city, and each of them has a different idea on where a facility would be located, and how it would be developed. I will not allow any rush to action that jeopardizes my core commitment to involve our community, our neighborhoods and the best and brightest minds in our city to do what is best for Holyoke, and as a result, respectfully ask the council to suspend any action from any casino group until after we have reviewed the final legislation, and the city prepares to lead any development project.”
Pluta’s administration and the City Council have been working with Paper City Development LLC, the firm interested in redeveloping Wyckoff Country Club.
In a letter sent to City Councilor Kevin Jourdain, Paper City partner Anthony Ravosa Jr. seconded the idea of the slow down.
Ravosa also wrote Jourdain about a possible entrance to the casino from Interstate 91.
Ravosa said, “Information needed from an on-going survey of the entire Wyckoff parcel by Heritage Surveyors is complete, but we have now asked Heritage to further expand the scope of their work to include some other adjacent parcels to enable a more thorough review of access and egress options. All of this work is related to the I-91 interchange that will ultimately be required to develop a resort casino at Wyckoff. It has been publicly suggested by some that we, Paper City, have ‘brought forward no remotely credible reason’ why the 4.5 acres of land sought through the reverter waiver at the northerly end of the Wyckoff Country Club property may be needed. The fact is that our intentions and the potential need for a small portion of this 4.5-acre parcel have been clearly spelled out and explained – it may be needed to accommodate a key element of our transportation infrastructure plan.
“That being said, during the last three weeks, continuing conversations between our engineers, Milone and MacBroom, and officials at Massachusetts Department of Transportation have yielded a potential alternative interchange option that they’ve strongly suggested we evaluate. As part of that evaluation, Paper City has launched a comprehensive traffic study at a cost of $25,000. This study will analyze existing traffic counts on all major arteries approaching the Wyckoff site and develop traffic modeling specific to the site employing the gaming demand study prepared by PKF Colliers to project daily trips to the casino and where patrons will be traveling from. This analysis and the resulting hard calculations will be critical in determining the best interchange scenario, traffic cueing, access and egress from I-91, and any potential impacts on local arterial roadways. This study may also render the need to further pursue the reverter waiver as unnecessary — and I stress the word ‘may’ because we just don’t know yet. In an effort to get the answers we need, we are expending considerable time and money focusing on this issue. However, early indications are that this alternative looks extremely promising. We expect the traffic study to be completed by the last week of October and to make some internal decisions relative to the best case scenario for transportation infrastructure and proposed routes by Nov. 15.”
|
