Construction to resume soon
A week after the announcement that Baltimore-based Cordish Companies will buy out its partner, Greenwood Gaming, to take 100 percent ownership of the Philly Live! Hotel & Casino project in South Philadelphia, regulators have granted Stadium Casino, the operating company for the casino, a two-year extension on the opening date, which will now be set in the first quarter of 2020.
Stadium Casino had requested a three-year extension to its original required opening date, which was the first quarter of 2018. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board last week granted the two-year extension, saying in its ruling that two years should be sufficient time to get slots and tables up and running in the new casino.
Just before voting, gaming board member Kathy Manderino sought assurances from Stadium that it will resume construction and complete the project. The former partnership paid $37 million for a Holiday Inn property on the site and partially demolished the 240-room hotel tower before halting construction last month.
“Maybe you’re far enough along to assure me that this is a foolish thought but, (being) a former Philadelphian, I’ve seen this project and other ones, even kind of at late, late stages, maybe this is later, kind of fall apart,” Manderino said.
But a representative of the developer told the board testified that he has no concerns, ant he is “cautiously optimistic” that the city’s second casino will be built.
The board’s ruling does state that one additional year of extension may be granted in the event of “unforeseen circumstances.”
Unforeseen circumstances have plagued the second stand-alone casino license for Philadelphia from the start. The original licensee, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe of Connecticut, faced fierce local opposition to the casino as first planned, and was forced to move the project from its original waterfront location before financing for the project fell victim to the Great Recession.
After Steve Wynn proposed Wynn Philadelphia and then pulled out of the project, the Stadium Casino partnership won out over four other bidders to secure the license. However, the project languished after the award was challenged by SugarHouse, the other Philadelphia casino, on the basis of the restriction in Pennsylvania’s gaming law on multiple casino ownership, citing Greenwood principal Watche “Bob” Manoukian’s ownership interest in the Parx casino in Bensalem.
Pennsylvania’s 2017 gaming expansion law eliminated the ownership restriction and the project was on, at least until the hotel demolition stopped earlier this year.
The Philly Live! complex will entail a casino with 2,000 slot machines and 125 table games, a 200-room hotel, five restaurants, nightclubs and a parking garage, all in the center of Philadelphia’s sports complex—the location of the city’s four professional sports teams.
Earlier this year, the Stadium partnership was granted a license to open a Category 4 mini-casino at the former site of the Bon-Ton anchor store at Westmoreland Mall in Western Pennsylvania. Stadium Casino has already spent more than $40 million on that project, including license fees to operate up to 750 slot machines and 35 table games.
At last week’s meeting, the gaming board also approved sports book licenses for SugarHouse and Parx casinos. The board’s executive director told PlayPennsylvania.com those sports books will have testing days soon.
