Wynn Resorts Unveils Everett Casino Redesign
BOSTON (AP) — Wynn Resorts unveiled a long-awaited redesign of its proposed Massachusetts casino on Thursday, giving state regulators a glimpse at a gently curving bronze glass hotel tower resembling those of its signature resorts in Las Vegas and Macau.
Casino officials said the tower would reach the same 24-story height as the previous design but be wider, allowing the hotel to house 600 rooms, or about 100 more than initially proposed.
Wynn has also scrapped a planned nightclub along the proposed retail esplanade in favor of meeting and convention space.
"This is a style we really like," Robert DeSalvio, the company's senior vice president of development, said as he revealed the two exterior renderings of the hotel. "It's a signature Wynn look...We think it really complements the landscape well."
Wynn won the Boston-area's lone casino license with a proposed $1.6 billion complex on roughly 33 acres on the Everett waterfront overlooking Boston.
But the state Gaming Commission deemed the initial hotel design too generic and asked the company to redesign it as a condition of awarding the license.
"This is a vast improvement over the design before," Steve Crosby, the commission chairman, said Thursday. "It will be incredibly visible. It's striking...Something exciting and to be proud of."
Steve Wynn, CEO of Wynn Resorts, has promised his Massachusetts venture will echo the "grand hotels" of the past, offering the largest hotel rooms outside of Las Vegas and other luxury amenities.
"People will come here to have fun and experience grandeur; to eat, shop, vacation and live large and hopefully forget about the rigors of life for a while," he said in a statement Thursday.
In a rare appearance in Boston on Jan. 15, the casino mogul described a lobby with two large indoor gardens.
Each would encompass about 2,000 square feet and house massive flower sculptures of a carousel and a Ferris wheel. The lobby would feature a 2,000-pound sculpture of Popeye by artist Jeff Koons.
The company has faced a series of recent challenges as it seeks to open the resort, proposed for a former Monsanto chemical plant site, by 2017.
The cities of Revere, Somerville and Boston and rival Mohegan Sun have filed suit to have Wynn's casino license vacated and for the commission to do-over the license competition.
The Boston-area license is one of three regulators have so far awarded. MGM has one for a Springfield casino and Penn National Gaming has another for a slot parlor in Plainville.
In other casino industry developments, newly sworn-in state Attorney General Maura Healey told the commission Thursday that her office will submit recommended gambling regulations in the coming days.
The Democrat, in her first full day in office, promised enforcing consumer protection laws, preventing organized crime from infiltrating the new industry and making sure casino operators uphold commitments to local communities will be among her top priorities.
Among the things she suggested to regulators were capping how much patrons can withdraw from ATMs in casinos and banning cash advances from credit cards.
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