MGM Resorts President and CEO Bill Hornbuckle recently met with city officials from Springfield, Massachusetts and admitted to them that it was “not a real notion” to expect its MGM Springfield casino to make good on its originally promised number of 3,000 jobs.
Hornbuckle, Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno and City Councilman Mike Fenton, who chairs the Casino Oversight Committee, all met in a closed-door meeting for an hour to discuss the MGM property.
The trio met with reporters afterward to give insight to the discussion. Hornbuckle said projections for employees should be lower than original estimates.
“[The] milestone ought to be like 2,000 employees, not [3,000],” he said, according to audio recorded by WAMC. “Let’s just come to an understanding here: If it’s [3,000], something dynamically has changed in this marketplace. It has to, in order to have that happen. Our original valuation of this market simply was off—full stop.”
The casino currently has 1,440 employees, with 279 openings; even that is short of Hornbuckle’s revised goal.
When MGM was courting the town of Springfield to put a casino there, the company promised 3,000 jobs, which was briefly reached when the casino opened in August 2018.
Gambling revenues have also fallen short of projections, pulling in approximately $22 million a month, but Hornbuckle said the company has lived up to its financial obligations. He pointed to the $107 million given to Springfield, as well as money donated to redevelop a former hotel into apartments.
Sarno said he was satisfied with MGM’s financial commitments.
Covid was definitely a contributor to the decline in revenue and workforce. Hornbuckle did tell WAMC that they misjudged the market.
“We thought there would be more business here than ultimately materialized — scale, scope, etc. And so, it is what it is. And so we’re pushing forward. We’re trying to make the very best of it,” he said.
All three agreed that there is room for improvement on both sides.
“There is capacity in that building for 3,000 jobs,” Hornbuckle said. “But it is going to involve making Springfield more of a destination and it’s not all on MGM. We can’t do it alone,”
“Today is a step in the right direction,” Fenton said. “It is an indication of forward progress that is both practical and exciting.”
