Why rush into anything that lasts forever. Besides, in 2006 we'll be focused on the All-Star Game and won't want to read anything like a 300 page report before then.
Mayor Street did hit upon a point that I stressed in the past when those in Harrisburg wrote the legislation: The new license are sold at a fixed price and they go forever. We need to put "expiration dates" on these protected, state-granted limited opportunities that amount to monopoly status.
Philadelphia Inquirer | 08/17/2005 | Report weighs sites for Phila. slots parlors
'We only get one chance to do this,' Street said. 'They will be here forever.'
The city could make the most money, the report said, if it places a slots parlor along the Delaware River near South Columbus Boulevard and another near the Schuylkill Expressway and Route 1.
Under the state gambling law, the city gets 4 percent of a casino's gross revenue, which, under this combination, could be as much as $34 million. The city could also gain about 9,500 jobs, said Bernard E. Anderson, a professor at the Wharton School and cochair of the task force.
Among the financial benefits to the city would be a clause in the gambling law that calls for the casinos to help pay the operating costs of the Convention Center. That formula would save the city about $18 million a year. And the city is expected to gain $10 million to $15 million a year in city taxes on the casinos and their workers.
For example, why not sell a 15-year license to develop the Hays site with gambling. But, make it a stipulation that there will be NO GAMBLING within 5 miles of HAYES for the next 50 years. The "limited engagement" wrinkle is often known as a "sunset" in legislative speak. For the citizens, it can be powerful leverage. The ownership dynamics would change. Homeownership would rise. People would be okay with a buy-in on the coat-tails of gambling in the neighborhood if there was a guarantee that gambling would depart at a certain period.
Show us what Hayes is like today, with construction of a gambling site, as a gambling site, then as a non-gambling site. Then take a wider view and show the general area around Hays in all of these instances.
1. Presently, the Hays site is wooded hillsides. The area around Hays is suburban homes.
2. Construction brings bulldozers and natural resources extraction. Meanwhile the houses rattle.
3. Gambling casino enters. Another strip mall might come in the area, up from the Waterfront. Houses survive, we expect.
4. Gambling departs, new townhouses emerge, or a par-3 golf course, etc. The homeowners thrive.
The real estate investment prospects for present owners would be greater in the long-term if the gambling term had a limit in years. They are going to take a beating in the short-term given the truck traffic, the uncertain prospects, and the new jams sure to await.
Philly is also trying to pin some of the new gambling incomes to cover the costs of the Convention Center operations. The same formula is being considered in Pittsburgh too as the Stadium Authority is going deeper into debt and they await some windfall from gambling to cover the bills at the new Pittsburgh Convention Center.
I don't want to see the new gambling profits go in an ongoing basis to prop up the white elephant also known as the Pittsburgh Convention Center. The best way to solve all these ills at once is to force the new gambling casino to take ownership of the new Convention Center.
The citizens would then MAKE money off of the Convention Center and keep more of the money from the the ongoing gambling windfalls for other projects -- not the Convention Center.
Pittsburgh should insist upon the selling of the new Convention Center to the gambling license holders.
The best place to build a new Gambling Casino is within the Convention Center. That is a perfect location. The gambling operators would love the location.
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Report weighs sites for Phila. slots parlors
A panel did not recommend any one spot but rejected certain pairings.
By John Sullivan
Inquirer Staff Writer
When it comes to slots in the city, Mayor Street's gambling task force hasn't said what it wants, but it knows what it doesn't.
Its 372-page interim report, released yesterday, did not recommend any of the 11 sites examined. But the report frowned on wedging two slots parlors on the east side of Market Street, saying they would add to downtown congestion and parking problems. For the same reason, the report ruled out placing two gambling halls at the Navy Yard or having a combination of one slots parlor on Market Street and another at Penn's Landing.
The report offered assessments of each of the sites it examined.
At a news conference yesterday, Street praised the report, saying it would guarantee that the city would do it right when it undertakes its state-mandated role as host to two gambling halls.
"We only get one chance to do this," Street said. "They will be here forever."
The city could make the most money, the report said, if it places a slots parlor along the Delaware River near South Columbus Boulevard and another near the Schuylkill Expressway and Route 1.
Under the state gambling law, the city gets 4 percent of a casino's gross revenue, which, under this combination, could be as much as $34 million. The city could also gain about 9,500 jobs, said Bernard E. Anderson, a professor at the Wharton School and cochair of the task force.
Among the financial benefits to the city would be a clause in the gambling law that calls for the casinos to help pay the operating costs of the Convention Center. That formula would save the city about $18 million a year. And the city is expected to gain $10 million to $15 million a year in city taxes on the casinos and their workers.
The yearly costs to the city, for policing and other services, could be $11 million to $16 million. Of those, the largest expenditure, $4.5 million to $7.5 million, would be for added police protection. Another large cost, about $2.3 million, would cover increased social-service costs from problem gamblers.
When trying to imagine what casinos in the city might look like, don't picture the mega-hotels in Las Vegas or Atlantic City. The city's parlors are more likely to resemble the understated casino buildings found in St. Louis or New Orleans, and will attract local customers, task-force members said.
"These will probably not be destination sites," said Paul Levy, who runs the Center City District and cochaired the task force. "People will likely drive to these sites."
While the report will serve as a guide for what the public can expect from slots parlors in Philadelphia, it is also part of Street's effort to have more say in where the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board locates two city-based slots parlors, which the law says must have 3,000 to 5,000 slot machines.
Legislators gave that power to the control board when they passed the gambling law last year, but a state Supreme Court ruling in June returned zoning power to local officials.
"We had an obligation to the people to do this report; little did we know the Pennsylvania Supreme Court would come by and give us a little boost," Street said.
Just what role the report will play is yet to be seen.
Rendell and legislators in Harrisburg have vowed to pass another law that would return zoning control to the board because they fear local zoning disputes would delay the estimated $1 billion in state tax revenue that slots will bring.
Thomas A. "Tad" Decker, chairman of the state gambling board, said the board had not seen the report.
"I'm sure we'll take notice of the report, because they spent a lot of time and money on it, and it will help us understand good and bad points," Decker said.
The report is the result of 29 weeks of work and is expected to cost $450,000 by the time it is completed in September. "More importantly is that we want to hear from the public in a series of hearings we plan to conduct on all applications," Decker said.
One of the challenges of the task force was deciding on locations to review because the panel is scheduled to make its recommendations to the mayor in September, months before applications for the city-based casinos will even be drafted.
That means the task force had to rely on public statements of potential interest - and, occasionally, speculation.
"Two sites we added based on rumors," said Shawn Fordham, executive director of the task force. One site is the former Budd Co. site in Nicetown, which Gov. Rendell has said he does not favor.
The other is the former Adam's Mark Hotel near the Schuylkill Expressway and Route 1, where Target plans to build a store, Fordham said.
Contact staff writer John Sullivan at 717-787-5934 or johnsullivan@phillynews.com.
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