A landmark decision looms this week on who will get to develop and operate the cash cow of all cash cows, a $1 billion-plus Boston-area gambling and entertainment palace. And right now, it’s Mohegan Sun’s game to lose.
By the end of the week, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission expects to announce the winner of the Boston-area casino license, nearly three years after Beacon Hill passed a grand gambling bill.
Mohegan enters this week’s final set of public hearings with a pretty clear advantage over Las Vegas titan and rival Steven Wynn, whose efforts have been undercut by everything from controversial land deals to a generic casino design ridiculed by a panel of Bay State architects.
The biggest threat right now to Mohegan may not be Wynn; a statewide casino repeal question is on the ballot this November, though the poll numbers aren’t in favor of the antis, at least for the moment.
Who wins is anything but academic – it could determine the future of billions in future development in and around Boston.
Mohegan’s Crucial Advantages
Even amid an historic building boom in Boston and its suburbs, these are huge projects. Wynn wants to build a $1.6 billion hotel and casino tower along the Mystic River in Everett, while Mohegan has proposed its own $1.3 billion behemoth on the Revere side of the Suffolk Downs racetrack.
However, their massive scope aside, there is nothing comparable in the way the projects are being received by some of the Bay State’s top planners and architects. Wynn’s proposal has triggered a withering stream of harsh critiques in a pair of recently released reports by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council and the Massachusetts chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Both reports have been submitted to the gaming commission, which is surely looking at them closely as it prepares for its final deliberations.
The Metropolitan Area Planning Council’s assessment of Wynn’s proposal didn’t generate big headlines. Things like traffic mitigation are decidedly unsexy. But the group didn’t pull any punches in concluding that Wynn’s proposed casino could cause traffic gridlock along roadways heating into Boston from the north.
It is “unlikely that any reasonable mitigation package could provide an adequate solution to this problem,” according to the report.
That increased traffic congestion, in turn, could stymie development plans in and around Charlestown’s Sullivan Square and in neighboring Somerville, MAPC contended.
“Boston’s vision for nearby Sullivan Square as a more walkable, bicycle-friendly, better connected area with increased residential and commercial densities would likely be compromised … thus diminishing the economic potential of the area,” the group’s report found.
While Mohegan’s plans would certainly generate lots of traffic as well along the already congested 1A corridor, the casino giant has been working closely with state officials on roadway improvements to ease the crunch, MAPC noted.
Mohegan’s proposed casino also has greater potential to generate spinoff development, both in Revere and Boston. That includes both the sprawling acreage of Suffolk Downs, most of which is currently untouched by Mohegan’s plan, as well as sites along Revere Beach, according to the MAPC.
A big plus in spurring addition development is the proximity of Mohegan’s new casino to public transportation – the Blue Line, to be exact. By contrast, Wynn’s proposal lacks any nearby connection to public transportation, the report found.
The Massachusetts chapter of the American Institute of Architects delivered some of the harshest blows to Wynn’s proposal.
The panel of prominent local architects has blasted the design of Wynn’s proposed Everett casino, deriding it as “woefully inadequate” and even “atrocious.” By contrast, the AIA panel found Mohegan’s proposed Revere casino to be “fun” and “playful.”
Wynn’s Stumbles
Too bad there isn’t a panel of local political experts to weigh in on the casino competition, for it surely would hand the Wynn team some pretty dismal grades for effectively flailing in the Boston area’s treacherous political currents.
Wynn’s Everett plans have been beset by a seemingly unending series of controversies related to the casino titan’s deal for the proposed development site. A felon tried to worm his way into the land deal, triggering months of negative headlines and requiring Wynn’s team to rework the deal and pledge there are no hidden partners. The chairman of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission was even forced to recuse himself from the Boston-area license decision after he revealed that a business partner from long ago was the main owner of the Everett land Wynn plans to buy. If that weren’t enough, Wynn’s team managed to only cut half as many mitigation deals with local communities as Mohegan has, the MAPC contended.
But the biggest blunder came in Wynn’s handling of Marty Walsh, Boston’s stubbornly independent-minded mayor. Mohegan successfully inked an $18 million a year mitigation deal with Walsh, placating a potentially powerful opponent. By contract, Walsh pulled out of talks with Wynn, putting at risk millions in potential mitigation dollars should the Las Vegas mogul win. Clearly Walsh has made his own calculations here.
It would be true shocker if Mohegan doesn’t walk away with the coveted Boston-area casino license. But as they say, it’s not over until it’s over.
Email: sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com
