Last week, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board unanimously approved renewing a casino license for Stadium Casino LLC, and also modified its original requirement that the developer build an on-ramp to the Schuylkill Expressway, Interstate 76, to alleviate traffic congestion in the vicinity.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the modification “puts the onus on government entities,” not the casino operator, to build the on-ramp.
The $700 million Live! Casino and Hotel Philadelphia, in the works since 2014, is expected to open sometime in 2020. Casino officials and the gaming board “privately negotiated the new terms of the on-ramp promise, which the board approved without comment,” the Inquirer noted. The gaming board did not explain how it arrived at the $3 million figure—far less than the $8 million to $10 million estimated for the on-ramp by the state Department of the Transportation, but more than the $2 million estimated by Stadium Casino’s lawyer, Richard W. Hayden, in a July hearing.
The company’s $3 million obligation will expire if the government does not have an approved and permitted on-ramp project in motion by August 2024, according to the gaming board’s order. If that happens, Cordish would be responsible only for $1 million in traffic-mitigation projects in South Philadelphia.
“They got away with not putting in the ramp,” said Ivan Cohen, a director of the Sports Complex Special Services District, which had argued for the on-ramp. The ramp requirement was added to the project during the bidding process between Cordish and Penn National Gaming; the latter company eventually withdrew from the race and Cordish agreed to build the ramp.
Hayden told the PGCB, “There’s very little, if any, value” to the on-ramp except on “Eagles game days.”
But neighborhood resident Judy Cerrone disagrees. She told the Inquirer, “We didn’t want the casino, but everybody wants the ramp. … It’s a nightmare. You can’t get in or out at all when there’s a game or a concert.”
Live! Philadelphia will be a full-scale Category 2 casino with a 240-room hotel, 2,200 slot machines and 150 table games.
In western Pennsylvania, Stadium Casino, the subsidiary of the Cordish Companies, received final approval from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board last week for its Category 4 mini-casino project in a former department store at the Westmoreland Mall in western Pennsylvania.
Dubbed Live! Casino Pittsburgh, the $150 million project, linked to the Philadelphia Live! casino, will create a 100,000-square-foot gaming, dining and entertainment destination at the 1.3 million-square-foot mall in Hempfield Township, around 30 miles from downtown Pittsburgh.
Live! Casino Pittsburgh will feature 750 slots and electronic table games and approximately 30 live-action table games, plus nationally recognized restaurants and live entertainment venues.
The project is expected to generate $188 million in annual economic impact, with an additional $148 million in economic impact from construction, including approximately 960 direct and indirect construction jobs, plus approximately 500 permanent new jobs for local and regional residents. In addition, the project will create numerous construction and operations vendor opportunities for local, minority, women-owned, and veteran-owned businesses, along with considerable support for local charities and nonprofits.
“We’re very excited and honored to have been awarded the license by the Gaming Control Board and thank them for their consideration,” said Joe Weinberg, managing partner of the Cordish Companies. “We look forward to working with state and local officials and the entire community as we move forward with development of a true world-class destination that will attract people from throughout the region for a unique gaming and entertainment experience.”
In a related matter during the hearing, Stadium Casino, LLC also received its Category 2 license renewal from the board for the primary Live! Casino & Hotel, currently under construction in South Philadelphia’s stadium district.
