At a recent public meeting, residents of Prince George County’s National Harbor and Oxon Hill communities in Maryland vented their dissatisfaction over the expected increase in traffic due to the .4 billion MGM National Harbor casino. An additional 10,000 vehicles are predicted to travel to the casino resort daily in the first few weeks following its December 8 opening, public officials said.
Residents also have been told they will have to pay for law enforcement required to handle to congestion, estimated at hundreds of thousands to $1 million. Two hundred county police officers will be on duty on the ground and in helicopters to manage the daily bottleneck at Interstates 295 and 495 leading to the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge. Bradley Frome, an economic aide to Prince George County Executive Rushern Baker III, said, “A lot of the off-site activity, off the grounds of the property, the county is going to be paying for.”
County officials consider the challenges a reasonable exchange for receiving $40-$45 million in annual gaming taxes from MGM, which was approved in 2013. Under Maryland law, casinos pay an effective tax rate of 67 percent on all gross gaming revenues which are shared with local host counties and also used to fund the state’s Education Trust Fund and Horse Racing Purse Dedication Account.
According to MGM’s most recent quarterly report, it has paid local companies $236 million for construction work, which provided jobs for more than 1,700 county residents. When it opens, the complex will provide about 3,600 permanent jobs. Area officials and business leaders have praised MGM’s recruitment efforts, especially among minorities, overcoming challenges like a limited number of qualified county firms and a post-recession shortage of electricians, plumbers and welders in the region.
In addition, MGM officials estimated the venue will spend $60-$80 million a year on procurement; a portion of that will go to county and minority owned businesses.
However some critics said MGM hasn’t met certain commitments, mainly because of a lack of county oversight. For instance, the high school culinary program the county and MGM agreed to establish has not happened. Also, under the community benefits agreement, MGM pledged to donate $1 million to the county before the opening of the casino. However, county officials monitoring compliance could not verify if MGM has met that goal. “Some of it is in the works,” said Roland Jones, director of the county’s Central Services and chairman of the oversight committee. He added MGM has “put forth money, manpower, resources. They have developed relationships. They could have blown us off entirely and said we are not going to do this but they put forth a true heartfelt effort.”
Greater Washington Board of Trade President and Chief Executive Officer James C. Dinegar said, “They are very big players here. It is such an amazingly big complex that I think there is something there for almost everyone in terms of jobs and opportunity for business.”
