MGM Springfield’s CEO Michael Mathis last week gave a progress of sorts on the economic activity that his company is generating in the Massachusetts city through the construction of its 0 million casino resort.
He noted a CNBC article published last summer that listed Springfield as one of the top cities in the country with “rising business opportunities.”
That story highlighted the casino and ”CNR Changchun Railway’s $65 million new railcar factory at the former Westinghouse Electric plant. Together, our companies will bring thousands of hospitality and high-tech jobs to Springfield, in addition to the thousands of tradespeople we will have employed to construct these facilities.”
MGM is currently building on a 14-acre site in the downtown area of the state’s third largest city. It is aiming at a September 2018 opening. That part of the city has not seen major construction in more than three decades. It qualifies as the largest private development in the region’s history.
As Mathis describes it: “Many onlookers watched as we moved the 129-year-old First Spiritualist Church across our site, and they were back again a few months later when we built a construction crane 205 feet into the air to lift the steel that has begun to frame MGM Springfield. Simultaneously, the garage that will house approximately 3,400 cars began to spring up seemingly overnight, broadcasting to the 100,000 daily passersby that downtown Springfield is transforming.”
Mathis brags that the company is developing “community connections and partnerships” “where local stakeholders combine efforts to enhance and create regional union employment opportunities for the hard-working people of Springfield and beyond.”
The next two years, he says, will be filled with “of filling those exciting structures with an enthusiastic workforce” with mass hiring planned for 2018 to put thousands of people to work in the hospitality and entertainment industry.
Mathis concludes: “As we bring onboard brands, entertainers and artists, we will do it strategically to create pre-opening anticipation that will have a spillover effect, creating economic opportunity and buzz for the city and region. Springfield is riding a wave of momentum as it surges as a smart place to locate new business.”
