Second Casino License For Philadelphia Awarded to Stadium Complex Project
By Steve Tawa, Mike Dunn, and Steve Beck
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Philadelphia's second casino license has been awarded to a group that proposed a casino-hotel project near the stadium complex in South Philadelphia.
The decision was announced this afternoon by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Commmission, following a quick formal vote at a meeting at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, in center city.
The casino project, called "Live!," will be located at Packer Avenue and Darien Street.
After two years of anaylsis and review, gaming regulators chose the joint venture of Cordish Companies and Greenwood Gaming, to build a $425-million complex on the Holiday Inn site, at 900 Packer Avenue.
Eyewitness News has learned the Holiday Inn located on Packer Avenue will be refurbished and made part of the larger complex.
Losing bidders now have 30 days to make an appeal directly to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Greenwood Gaming chairman Robert Green says they won because the had the best location, the most experience as operators, and responsibility to the communities in which they locate.
He acknowledged that his group presented the lowest revenue estimates among the applicants during the hearing process because, Green says, they knew the market.
"We brought certitude," he told reporters afterward. "We always have a commitment of doing what we say we're going to do."
The partners in the South Philadelphia project already own and operate two of the top-grossing casinos in the mid-Atlantic region: Parx Casino, in Bensalem, Pa., owned by Greenwood; and Maryland Live!, outside Baltimore, owned by Cordish.
He thinks the project should be able to open within 15 months of breaking ground.
The casino license awarded today became available after the Gaming Control Board voted in 2010 to revoke the license of Foxwoods after the project languished and lost its financing. The Foxwoods investors sued to get the decision overturned, but eventually lost the final court ruling.
KYW's Mike Dunn reports that Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter -- who had earlier voiced frustration that a decision on a second casino license was dragging on -- said this afternoon that he is pleased that the state gambling agency has finally chosen a site. And he hopes the process now moves forward quickly.
"For us, the issue was just to get a decision," the mayor said. "This process closed somewhere in February or March, so I don't know what's been going on. But we needed to move forward. They've made a decision. It is what it is."
And Nutter says the second casino will have a huge economic impact on the city.
"It's a $425-million project, two to three thousand construction jobs, 1,500 permanent jobs, $16½ million in anticipated tax revenue to the city. And the school district actually gets money as a result of gaming in Philadelphia as well!"
The Nutter administration had previously disclosed that it preferred one of the two center city applicants over the two in South Philadelphia, but Mayor Nuter says he isn't fretting that neither of those was selected.
"The board made their decision based on whatever their criteria are," he said. "That's the way it goes. You live to fight another day."
Meantime, Second District city councilman Kenyatta Johnson, whose district includes the casino site chosen by the board, would not take questions on his reaction. He issued a statement saying he will work to address the concerns of residents -- which include that the casino could be an eyesore -- near the site as the project moves forward.
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