City and school district officials in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania received bad news when the local recorder of deeds compiled the realty transfer tax due on the sale of Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem by Las Vegas Sands Corp. to Wind Creek Hospitality, which closed on June 7.
Officials had previously projected that the sale would generate a realty transfer tax of up to $13 million, which would have been split evenly between the city and the Bethlehem Area School District. However, according to public documents obtained by the Allentown Morning Call, the Northampton County Recorder of Deeds compiled a preliminary calculation of $493,160, or around $246,580 each for the city and its school district.
Bethlehem Mayor Robert Donchez told the newspaper that while he has not received official word on the transfer tax, it has become clear it will fall far short original projections, noting that an amount less than $250,000 will not affect the city’s budget at all.
For Las Vegas Sands Corp. to sell 100 percent of Sands Bethlehem’s operations to Wind Creek, an arm of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians of Alabama, the minority owners, partners in licensee Bethworks Now LLC, had their stake in the facility transferred into a ground lease. Wind Creek, which owns the structures and improvements on the site, entered into a lease with the ground landlords, Arthur Mothershed, Wind Creek’s vice president of business development, told the Morning Call.
“To use loopholes in the law, to say you’re leasing property versus owning it, that’s one thing,” Bethlehem City Council Bryan Callahan said at the June 4 city council meeting. “But they want to come in here as good community partners. I was hearing great things. I hope the No. 2 Machine Shop (planned for transformation to a water park) goes through, but I’m very disappointed in what I’m hearing, and I hope you could relay that to the officials at Wind Creek.”
“Councilman Callahan could deliver that message himself,” Donchez told the newspaper about Callahan’s comments. “It’s more important to develop that (property) as a destination site, which will bring more jobs and taxes to the city. We can’t lose sight of that.”
