Slots Gambling Back In Play For Central Massachusetts

Friday, July 19, 2013

Steven Jones-D'Agostino, GoLocalWorcester Contriibutor

“The house always wins,” is a gambling axiom. In the Bay State, the house is the Commonwealth–the biggest purveyor of betting in what was once a bastion of Puritanism.

In the 1970s, Beacon Hill placed its bet on the Lottery. Four decades later, the Commonwealth played the casino/slots card. The Expanded Gaming Act, signed into law in 2011 by Gov. Deval Partick, authorizes the state Gaming Commission to license three regional casinos and one slots parlor.

Now, four companies are lined up at the slots-licensing window. In Greater Worcester, two of them, Rush Street Gaming and The Cordish Cos., are seeking to locate parlors in Millbury and Leominster, respectively.

On July 15, representatives of Rush Street, parent of Mass Gaming and Entertainment, unveiled plans for a $200-million slots parlor. Millbury town officials are declining to comment for now. As Selectman Chair Bernard Plante tells GoLocalWorcester, "We don't have a host-site agreement banged out yet."

Leominster is also placing its economic-development bet on gambling. On July 18, Mayor Dean Mazzarella announced signing a host-site agreement with Cordish to locate a $125-million slots parlor there. The 125,000-square-foot facility would contain 1,250 slots games and provide at least 500 full-time jobs with benefits.Leominster is seeking at least $3.8 million annually in slots revenue as part of the host-site agreement. The amount would be reduced after five years, if slots revenue decline over that period.

This is the fourth time that Cordish has proposed a slots parlor in Massachusetts. Selectmen in Boxboro, Danvers and Salisbury killed the firm’s first three tries. Meanwhile, three other developers are vying to secure the state’s only slots license, which the Gaming Commission expects to award next winter–Plainridge Racecourse in Plainville, Raynham Park in Raynham, and Penn National Gaming in Tewksbury. Proposals have also been floated around for four regional casinos, which, unlike slots parlors, contain other games such as blackjack and roulette.

You can bet your bottom dollar that Puritanical patriarch John Winthrop must be rolling over in his grave.

Worcester’s loss is Millbury’s gain

What happens in Vegas, may stay in Vegas. But here in the Heart of the Commonwealth, what didn’t stay in Worcester may end up staying in Millbury.

In that Blackstone Valley town, Rush Street/MG&E wants to construct a 100,000-to-115,000-square-foot slots parlor a short distance from Shoppes at Blackstone, the largest open-air shopping center in Central Mass. Like the competing Leominster proposal, it would be the only slots parlor from Provincetown to Pittsfield.

The Millbury slots facility would include more than 1,250 slots games as well as live-entertainment arenas, a full day spa and restaurants. The building would be LEED Gold-certified by the U.S. Green Building Council. The developer expects the project to create “hundreds” oftemporary construction jobs and 400 permanent jobs.

Rush Street/MG&E had originally sought to locate a $240-million slots parlor in Worcester. In early June, however, the company picked up its bargaining chips and departed the city after a failed two-and-a-half month effort to site the parlor in the city’s struggling Green Island/Main South neighborhood. The company cited three key reasons for leaving the Worcester table:

Annual slots revenues, after state taxes and fees, would be far less than Rush Street/MG&E’s costs to build and operate the slots parlor as well as its ability to make a decent return on investment.
Annual real-estate taxes plus one-time mitigation costs for public safety, public health and economic development were too high.
One-time costs to buy and clean up the contaminated Wyman-Gordon property along Madison Street plus make road and traffic improvement in and around Kelley Square were too much.

However, the final straw came when Rush Street/MG&E pulled a full-service, upscale hotel from the slots-parlor package. City officials called the hotel a vital part of the proposal. To the degree that enough city councilors were leaning toward supporting the slots proposal, they backed off.

On top of that, many community leaders, including those involved with Vote No Slots, expressed major concerns about a slots parlor in Worcester. Vote No Slots posted a set of seven “myths” and “facts” on its website.

The Vote No Slots website appears to be inactive - the latest news item is dated June 4. However, the group's Twitter page remains active. An example is this July 16 posting: “Huge issues with Rush Street Gaming: bostonherald.com/business/busin…Suitable? Really? #NoSlots.”

Hurdles to clear

No similar anti-slots movement appears on the horizon in neighboring Millbury, which for decades has been the depository for large-scale and not-always-attractive development projects. They include the Upper Blackstone Water Pollution Abatement District along Route 20 and the nearby Mass. Pike/Route 146 interchange.

During the July 15 public hearing by the Millbury Planning Board, Rush Street/MG&E traffic consultant Robert Michaud said his client is committed to improving the interchange at Route 146 and Main Street. That interchange would be the access point for 90 percent of trips generated by the slots parlor. However, Planning Board Chair Richard Gosselin was unconvinced that the improvements would resolve the gridlock that occurs around the nearby Shoppes at Blackstone during the peak of the holiday shopping season.

Gosselin also questioned the lack of conferencing facilities in the slots proposal. In response, David Patent, president of Rush Street Gaming, said a multi-use room could be included in the design, although it would not be a full-service conference center.

Because the Millbury slots site is in a commercial-overlay district, Rush Street/MG&E must obtain a special permit plus site-plan and stormwater-plan approvals from the Planning Board. The company and Board of Selectmen also need to negotiate and sign a host-community agreement by July 26, the deadline set by the state Gaming Commission.

Should the Millbury proposal clear all those hurdles, town voters would then decide on the slots parlor in a referendum election, to be held sometime in September. If voters approve the project, Rush Street/MG&E would need to submit a Phase 2 application to the state Gaming Commission by October 4.

On behalf of Rush Street/MG&E, Boston PR agency Rasky Baerlein provided written responses to GLW’s submitted questions regarding the traffic-mitigation and conference-space issues:

Regarding traffic mitigation: “[P]eak times of traffic for the casino would differ from those of the Shoppes, with the casino’s peak times being mainly Friday and Saturday nights. Our traffic consultants and very aware of and definitely sensitive to the traffic issues in the area. There is no question that the traffic improvements we will do as part of the project will not only help with the problem but be part of the solution, and [Rush Street/MG&E] addressed that during the presentation.”

Regarding conference space: “Patent made it clear that MG&E is receptive to working on the wants and needs of the community. At their other casinos, Rush Street has successfully incorporated into the building rooms that are multi-use that could be used for functions, events, or entertainment.”

Greater Worcester's only real chance

Unlike with Worcester slots proposal, the chatter about a Millbury is fairly quiet. The town’s two Beacon Hill representatives are not showing their hand on the Rush Street/MG&E proposal–at least, not until town and company officials ink a host-site pact. But they seem to be leaning toward support.

This spring, state Sen. Michael Moore (D-Millbury), who also represents part of Worcester, said of the since-abandoned Worcester proposal that he's not a "big advocate for slots." However, he added, he wanted to find out what Worcester would get in return, before taking a stand.

Now, Moore’s comment about a Millbury slots parlor sounds a bit different. “I’m not opposed to the concept of slots and even the location of [a slots parlor in Millbury],” he tells GoLocalWorcester, “as long as the safeguards are put in place that the community wants put in place. There’s got to be some confirmation by the community that they want to go in this direction.”

Moore’s colleague on the House side, State Rep. Paul Frost (R-Auburn), voices a similar sentiment. Frost, who also represents Millbury, tells GLW, “I’m still waiting to see a few more details. But I think it is a potentially exciting opportunity for Millbury and the surrounding area to have this economic opportunity in the community. I’ve long said that if there’s a willing community that can meet up with a willing gaming developer, that a slots facility in Central Massachusetts made a lot of sense.”

The four full-fledged casinos allowed under the Expanded Gaming Act are regional in nature, and the state has lumped Worcester County in with Boston in defining one of those regions. Frost, who opposed that move, says a slots parlor is now Greater Worcester’s only real chance to cash in on expanded gambling. “The chances of Worcester or a surrounding community hosting a full-fledged, resort-style casino was next to nil,” he says. “It would be very difficult to compete with a Greater Boston bid…“

A real positive for the Valley

Jeannie Herbert admits she’s game for gambling every once in a while. But the president and CEO of the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce insists she’s a low-roller, betting only a few sawbucks per infrequent outing. That said, she sounds ecstatic about the prospects of a slots parlor in Millbury, which sits atop the Blackstone Valley, calling it “a real positive for the Valley.”

Officials of Rush Street/MG&E, with whom Hebert met on July 16, have “taken into consideration the flavor of the Valley and [its] historic aspect,” she says. “They haven’t proposed some big, high-rise, behemoth...They’re [also] very sensitive to the needs of the people in the area [of the proposed site] and they’re willing to make the changes that are necessary, so [the slots parlor] won’t cause traffic-flow problems or [other] problems within the community.”

Hebert says she’s researched some of Rush Street’s three existing casinos, all of which are located outside New England. “They’re very community-minded,” she reports. “They’ve worked with community programs and with the [local] chambers of commerce. This is not just one company coming in, and looking out for themselves...so I’m pretty happy about it.“

On Monday: A look at the impact of casinos and slots on gambling addicts, and how the Expanded Gaming Act addresses it.

Steven Jones-D'Agostino is chief pilot of Best Rate of Climb: Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media and Radio Production.