The Seneca Nation of Indians and developer Robert Morgan want to build a multi-story video gaming/performing arts center in downtown Rochester, New York. The complex would include a 3,000-seat theater on the upper floors and a casino with video terminals on the first two floors, plus parking for 1,700 cars. The cost would be -0 million. No formal proposal has been submitted to the city.
Recently a telephone town hall, mainly focused on Mayor Lovely Warren’s upcoming budget proposal, asked the question: “Do you think the city should do everything it can to revitalize downtown even if that includes a job-creating performing arts center and gaming facility?” According to the city, 2,927 callers phoned in–however only 427 answered the poll question. “Our focus is to create jobs, to create opportunities for our citizens. I won’t go and open up a discussion with the community or city council until I have a proposal in my hand,” Warren said.
Thomas Masaschi, managing partner with DHD Ventures, said, “I could go either way. I believe the casino should be downtown. In every city that is growing right now, it’s commonplace. You have to sacrifice sometimes to make sure you get different things. I understand everybody’s sensitivity to it.”
Developer James Costanza said, ” I don’t believe that casinos are the powerhouses that they were just 10 years ago, mostly because of supply and demand.” He noted if the casino is a “big box with walls to the streets of downtown that is nothing more than a vacuum cleaner. But if it is a Monte Carlo-like, smaller venue that draws in different socio-economic classes and really mixes well with the pedestrian traffic flow, that’s a positive.”
