LET’S GET IT STARTED: MGM had been waiting on approval from the Springfield City Council for proposed changes to the casino site plan, but also on something even more important: the council’s permission for the city to amend the host community agreement with the company, which would condone design changes in the first place.
MGM won both on Feb. 22, when the council voted 12-1 in favor of both an amendment and the updated site plan, which allows for a scaling back of total project costs, a 14 percent decrease in hotel square footage, and a 38 percent decrease in retail space footage, according to an independent impacts report commissioned by the state’s gaming commission this past fall. The sole dissenting vote was cast by City Council President Michael Fenton.
Fenton has publicly stated his uneasiness about allowing MGM the upper hand on potential future negotiations to the design plans. Time will tell how far the project gets before this comes up again — demolition is well under way, and construction closed Bliss and Howard streets to through traffic as of last week.
BORDERLINE: Aspiring employees in Connecticut may be disappointed to discover that the new website CTJobsMatter.com is not for career listings. Jobs don’t appear on this site — they disappear, according to the embedded video that claims Connecticut will lose at least 9,300 jobs and nearly $100 million annually to the MGM Springfield casino when it opens in 2018. “We can save half the jobs and revenue by letting the Mashantucket and Mohegan tribes build a new casino at their own expense,” says the video’s narrator. “Connecticut jobs depend on it.”
The two tribes are determined to build Connecticut’s third casino — they paid for that website, and they funded the study that came up with those numbers — but they’ll need a groundswell of public support to build it. Construction of a new casino, regardless of location, would require new legislation on the state level. On top of that, MGM has filed an ongoing lawsuit in federal court claiming the Connecticut gaming act is unconstitutional because it gives the new company MMCT — a joint venture between the Mohegan and Mashantucket tribes — unfair advantage.
Increased casino competition between Massachusetts and Connecticut may turn out to be good, bad, or ugly. But to hear Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy tell it at a Hillary Clinton campaign rally in Springfield last week: “it’s got a ways to go if it’s ever going to happen.”
LOOKING EAST: Unstoppable force, meet immovable object. The $1.7 billion Wynn Everett casino project has hit the brakes on its April construction groundbreaking, frozen all hiring, and delayed its opening indefinitely. The 33-acre site, located outside of Boston, was expected to open in the second half of 2018, around the same time as MGM Springfield. But a legal appeal filed with the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, which fights a permit granted to Wynn Resorts, has seemingly nuked the company’s plans.
This is, in some form, good news for MGM, which is currently hiring contractors and laborers for its Springfield project. Barring more bizarre news, MGM Springfield will be the first casino to open in Massachusetts.•
Curveballs a’comin’, or smooth sailing ahead? Send your predictions to hstyles@valleyadvocate.com.
