After having just completed making a settlement with the city of Boston over its suit to stop the .7 billion Wynn Everett, the casino developer must now deal with an appeal by the much smaller city of Somerville, which claims that the state improperly gave its environmental stamp of approval without properly taking into account how much traffic from the development will impact the town.
Last week Somerville filed an administrative appeal of the permit issued a few weeks ago by the Department of Environmental Protection.
In making the appeal, Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone declared, “The project will have serious consequences to the health of city residents as an estimated 18,000 people per day are expected to drive to the casino.”
The appeal process could take six months to a year to complete, and could conceivably delay the project by a year. Unfortunately for Wynn, the action puts the breaks on issue Wynn’s license.
The action prompted Wynn spokesman Michael Weaver to call the mayor “selfish” and to accuse him of politicizing the issue “for his own benefit.” Weaver told the Boston Herald, “The mayor demonstrates his disrespect for the exhaustive work done by many state agencies in issuing this permit by filing an appeal to further his own personal political ambition.”
The mayor fired back that the appeal was a way to address the casino’s “serious and real consequences,” which he said included heart disease, asthma and lung cancer. He told Boston Herald Radio in an interview, “I don’t know who Michael Weaver is,” Curtatone said. “I think the pig (Tazzy) is smarter, that you’re talking to on the radio program. Michael Weaver has never talked to me. To assert this is politics, what politics?
This is the city’s fifth challenge to the Wynn Everett, each of which, said Curtatone, sends city attorneys to “court on five different fronts, hoping the legal system will demand our environmental and traffic concerns be addressed.”
He told Boston Herald Radio, “We will not relinquish the rights we have to protect our community, to protect our environment, to protect our health,” Curtatone said on Boston Herald Radio. “We will go as far as have to.”
He said his suit is different than Boston’s was, and asserted that he hadn’t coordinated it with Boston Mayor Martin Walsh.
Massachusetts Senate President Stanley Rosenberg, who was interviewed later on the same radio program, observed, “Litigation is very very common when you’re taking about casinos and slot parlors. The neighbors who are opposed, the people who didn’t get a license, anybody who has a gripe will try to slow the thing down by taking it to the courts and sometimes its even a strategy to extract some kind of payments.
“Mr. Curtatone has not said anything about the money side, but he is clearly saying they have environmental concerns and he is using the courts to get his point across.” He added, “Mayor Walsh did the same thing and he was able to negotiate an agreement. We may see the same thing play out with Somerville.”
MGM Springfield
The $950 million MGM Springfield, which will soon begin rising on 14 acres in Massachusetts’s third largest city was deliberately sited on land that in 2011 was largely devastated by a freak tornado.
It will include a casino with 3,000 slots, 75 gaming tables, three banquet rooms, a cinema, a bowling alley, more than 20 retail shops, dining and a 250-room hotel.
The area, south of the downtown, is one of the oldest parts of the city. Many buildings with historical value will be either demolished, moved or altered in some form. With the opening of the casino in the autumn of 2018, city officials hope it will lead the city in an economic renaissance.
The casino resort will include as part of its economic shadow the MassMutual Center and Symphony Hall. The developer has agreed to help fund many events at both centers for the next eight years.
This prompted the city’s chief development officer, Kevin E. Kennedy to declare “Springfield is going to become an entertainment capital.”
Final approvals of the revised MGM Springfield plans still require approval by the city council and the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. The company downsized its original plans by about 10 percent, which spooked city officials, who worried that MGM was planning to abandon the project.
MGM has worked stolidly to rebuild their confidence, noting that the cost of the project, despite downsizing, has gone from $800 million to $950 million.
Part of the panic was caused by the fact that city officials have pinned their hopes on repair the damages wrought by the tornado on the casino development.
One of the oldest buildings in the area is the 1895 former state armory, which will be transformed into a high-end restaurant. The old French Congregationalist Church, built in the 1880s, will be moved and become a shopping center. Facades from other old buildings will be used for street entrances to the casino.
Watching as workers reworked facades to be reborn with other functions, Kennedy observed, “We wanted MGM to be part of Springfield and not Springfield a part of MGM.”
MGM is also investing heavily in non-gaming aspects of its resort, emphasizing that it’s not building a “box of slots,” an epithet that an MGM executive hurled at the proposed satellite casino that neighbor Connecticut hopes to build near Hartford to counter MGM’s siren influence on local residents.
The Springfield city council will hold the fifth and final hearing on the changes this week. Council President Michael Fenton commented, “This is our fifth hearing and expect we will make substantial headway with these discussions. The city has worked with the abutters since the last meeting and most of their issues have been resolved.”
The meeting will include testimony by businesses that are adjacent to or are affected by the property, referred to as “abutters.” The meeting was expected to be long and Fenton said he planned to bring in dinner and refreshments for the council.”
Commenting on the changes that MGM was forced to make by changing realities imposed by state roadwork, MGM Springfield COO Michael Mathis wrote last week, “The good news is that the culmination of those events led us to a proposed redesign of our hotel to further activate Main Street in downtown Springfield. The relocated hotel, moved from a tower on State Street to a mid-rise on Main Street, has 252 four-star rooms, two more than the original design. The new design and Main Street location allows us to be more creative and offer unique high-end suites that are more than twice the size of our original suites.”
He reiterated MGM’s commitment to help revive the city’s economy. “We understand that many people feel that the truest sign of our commitment to MGM Springfield is visible and robust construction activity. If you are one of those people, then 2016 is the year for you. We will be ramping up our construction workforce. These men and women will construct our site while making an impact on local businesses with the increased foot traffic in the area. The Western Massachusetts construction industry will be well represented on site, adding to the quality of life for local families and potential for future jobs.”
He concluded, “This year, we will further erase the tornado’s path of destruction, and in its place we will build a path to a brighter future, where together we can welcome the world back to a great American downtown.”
