A rendering of Wynn’s proposed Everett casino.

Let’s face it: Steve Wynn is definitely not the kind of guy who likes cooling his heels for anything, let alone a ruling from some obscure bean-counter in a dingy state office. But as he comes to grips with the balky Massachusetts regulatory process, the Las Vegas tycoon better get used to it.
Unless he can pull off a feat that has eluded some of the best developers around, Wynn may very well have to wait until 2016 to start construction on his $1.75-billion Everett gambling palace. And that, in turn, could push off the opening of his long-awaited Boston-area showcase until 2018 – practically the end of the decade.
While Wynn’s high-powered team of development consultants has kept everyone entertained with fancy renderings of his 24-story Everett casino, any hopes the casino tycoon may have had of sweeping city and state officials off their feet and hustling his giant development into construction are fading fast.
To start, a state environmental permitting process that Wynn’s team had hoped to wrap up last fall is now bleeding into the spring; once that is concluded, Wynn faces the ultimate regulatory hurdle, one that has been the bane of many an ambitious Massachusetts developer’s existence: winning a Chapter 91 waterfront building license. The massive resort is, of course, slated to rise on the banks of the Mystic River.
In discussions with waterfront advocates, Wynn’s team has indicated it hopes to clear that hurdle in just over four months, which would probably set a new record in the regulatory annals of Massachusetts. Realistically, it could take several months, if not a year or more, for Wynn to clear the Chapter 91 process, endangering hopes of a groundbreaking this fall and potentially costing tens if not hundreds of millions in lost revenue in a high-stakes business where time is indeed money.
“People come in all the time, everyone is in a rush, so who knows what the state will say,” noted Vivien Li, president of The Boston Harbor Association, of Wynn’s hopes for speedy approval.

Environmental Impact
The Wynn team had hoped to win key environment impact approvals last fall, which would have cleared the way for the final step of getting a Chapter 91 license. However, those discussions have dragged into the spring as state regulators pressed for more details on how Wynn will mitigate the flood of traffic that will pour through Charlestown on its way to his Everett mega development.
Despite taking months longer than planned, the state officials are likely to sign off on the final environmental impact report in the next few weeks. But that’s akin to summiting Mt. Washington, only to find Mt. McKinley looming ahead.
Wynn’s team wants to kick off the process in April and have their waterfront building permit in hand by September, said Li, who, along with other Boston Harbor Association leaders, met with Wynn’s team earlier this month.
While four and a half months may sound like a long time, it would probably set a new record for Chapter 91 reviews. Li can’t recall any Chapter 91 review that was completed in less than six months, with the average being nine months to more than a year. If that’s the case, Wynn is going to have to settle for a late 2015 or spring 2016 groundbreaking.
It’s not that developers haven’t tried to speed up the process – they almost always do. Billionaire Nick Pritzker, the one-time developer of Fan Pier, may be the most prominent example of a developer who kicked and screamed his way through the Chapter 91 process, to no avail.
But Wynn and his team do have one important advantage over the typical Boston developer.
Most developers are battling to not just get through the Chapter 91 process as quickly as possible, but also to save money by scaling back the concessions they are forced to make, such as new parks or other public space. They are also worried about setting precedents that may come back to haunt them later when they propose another waterfront project down the line.
By contrast, Wynn’s team appears almost solely focused on finding out what different stakeholders and potential critics want and then coming to an agreement to keep the process moving along.
In the contentious world of Boston development, Wynn’s team is something new, playing Santa Claus instead of the Grinch.
“I think it’s a more open way of doing things,” Li said. “They want to know what they are up against. They are hoping the state will move things forward in a timely way.”
Even after state officials grant Wynn a Chapter 91 license, that doesn’t end the threat of additional delays. The potential exists for a “10-taxpayer suit,” which gives ordinary citizens the right to appeal any state decision to grant a Chapter 91 license. While the suits don’t necessarily stand up in court, they can still gum up the works for a while, with activists at times using them to wring concessions out of developers.
All that said, it will be interesting to see how Wynn’s kill-them-with-kindness approach works, even just under the theory that no one has tried it before in the cutthroat world of Bay State development.
But things are as they are here in Massachusetts, and even Steve Wynn, with all his can-do magnetism and billions in the bank, is unlikely to change that.