Possibly the last legal impediment to the .1 billion Wynn Boston Harbor casino project in Everett was nudged aside last week as the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) recommended that a key waterfront permit be issued.
DEP Commissioner Martin Suuberg late last week upheld the issuance of public waterways license to the Wynn project.
The issuance of this permit was challenged by the city of Somerville, and its mayor, Joseph Curtatone, who tried to lever the city’s appeal of the permit being issued into so delaying the project that he might get more mitigation money from Wynn for traffic and other impacts. Somerville now has until August 2 to ask Suuberg to reconsider his decision.
Curtatone’s appeal is probably the last legal hurdle Wynn will have to jump before finally beginning work on the mega casino. Although Wynn was awarded the license for the Boston metro gaming zone more than a year and a half ago lawsuits by the cities of Boston and Revere, miffed that their cities had been passed over by the state gaming commission, delayed its start.
Boston’s lawsuit was dismissed in December. But the Somerville challenged caused Wynn to halt construction for four months, even delaying the groundbreaking. It announced that the casino resort would not open until 2019.
Wynn is in the midst of a $30 hazardous materials clean up of the 33 acres adjacent to the Mystic River, land that was occupied for decades by a succession of chemical companies, the last being Monsanto. The cleanup involves removing lead, arsenic and other chemical pollutants.
DEP hearing officer Jane Rothchild referred to the clean up when she commented, “One does not need to be a casino enthusiast to recognize and acknowledge the benefit that accrues to a city when a long-dormant contaminated waste site is cleaned up and brought back to useful life.”
After listening to a series of witnesses and reading through briefs submitted by both sides, Rothchild recommended granting the permit, although tacking on some new requirements for Wynn. She produced a 50-page report to support her recommendation. She said that Curtatone did not prove its allegation that the state made a mistake in awarding the permit.
Among them was to increase the percentage of open space on the land by two acres to 6.5 acres, and adding a ferry service and fishing pier. These additional amenities would, she said, “complement the multipurpose dock at the casino site and provide additional activation of the Mystic River waterfront and the greater access to the watershed for smaller crafts.”
Rothchild also recommended that the permit be issued for 50 years rather than 80 years, which was something that Curtatone had also objected to.
The developer has said it will happily meet the new requirements. In a statement Wynn Resorts said it was “looking forward to the commissioner’s final sign-off and commencing full construction of our project.”
Robert DeSalvio, president of Wynn Boston Harbor, said in a statement, “During the course of this process we offered the reduced term to both the city of Somerville and the DEP, therefore we are clearly happy to proceed with this change.”
Mayor Curtatone told the Boston Globe that he might appeal the decision in Superior Court once it’s issued. In his appeal of the permit the mayor alleged that the casino resort would affect, “the health of city residents as an estimated 18,000 people per day are expected to drive to the casino.”
Putting the best spin on the bad news, Curtatone said he was encouraged that the hearing officer, “made clear that Somerville did have standing to bring its appeal and that she saw the validity and importance of our arguments, in particular around the unusual length of the license as well as the need to make the ferry a condition of the license.”
Wynn estimates that it has spent $300 million so far on the project, increasing the original estimated cost from $1.7 billion to $2.1 billion.
