Prince George’s County officials are expected to vote today on the construction plan for the 5 million MGM National Harbor casino, which will be adjacent to the mixed-use National Harbor development on the Potomac River.
Members of the county council put off a vote until today because three members of the nine-member panel were absent last Monday. The vote by the county council’s district council, which considers zoning and land use, is considered the last major hurdle before construction can begin. Site work has already begun.
While the plan for the casino is going full-speed ahead, neighbors in the Fort Washington area are complaining about the large outside lights in the construction plan. One resident complained of that and impending traffic in an interview with the Associated Press.
“You cannot just go ahead and allow them to build and then try to fix it later,” said Karen Egloff, who lives near the construction site. “I do not understand. What is the incredible rush when you see that things are not in place, when they are saying that there are serious studies of transportation going on?”
MGM attorney Arthur Horne responded that the company has done all required due diligence with respect to traffic concerns. “It’s a reality there’s a lot of traffic, but it’s not so much traffic that you can’t have additional development,” Horne told the AP, “and MGM’s casino is within that trip cap, which means that it hasn’t gone over the level that will require you to do additional road improvements, so we’re sympathetic, but we also recognize that professionals are telling us that the transportation area, that network, works.”
MGM National Harbor will feature 3,600 slot machines and 140 table games. The project is expected to create 2,000 construction jobs and 4,000 permanent jobs.
MGM is expected to open in summer of 2016. Caesars’ Horseshoe Baltimore is slated to open late next month.
