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Threat to city's gaming-tax benefit is defused

Mayor Nutter seems to have discouraged - for now - a move in Harrisburg to strip the city of millions in gaming taxes to help pay for expansion of the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Mayor Nutter seems to have discouraged - for now - a move in Harrisburg to strip the city of millions in gaming taxes to help pay for expansion of the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Gov. Rendell, who recently voiced support for that move, also appears to have helped stop it.

State Rep. Jim Wansacz, a Democrat from Lackawanna County, held off yesterday on plans to introduce legislation that would pull from the city $64 million per year in gaming taxes to expand and operate the Convention Center.

Wansacz, Rendell and others in Harrisburg have been frustrated by delays for two casino projects here.

Rendell's spokesman, Chuck Ardo, said that the governor spoke with Wansacz "regarding the timing of this legislation."

Nutter met privately yesterday with Neil Bluhm and Dick Sprague, two of the investors in SugarHouse, a casino planned for the Delaware riverfront in Fishtown. The state Supreme Court last week appointed a special master to deal with disputes between SugarHouse and the city after investors complained that Nutter's staff was stalling the project.

Bluhm, Sprague and U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, who sat in on the meeting, later declined to comment.

"I think that it is fair to say that progress is being made," Nutter said after the meeting.

The other casino, Foxwoods, was OK'd for the riverfront in South Philly but is now negotiating to move to the former Strawbridge & Clothier store, at 8th and Market streets. Nutter supports that move.

Nutter predicted that investors for SugarHouse and Foxwoods, summoned to an April 8 meeting of the state Gaming Control Board to discuss the status of their projects, will now say that "the city is working in cooperation, in a positive fashion" with the casinos.

Wansacz said that he has been in contact with the casino investors. He noted that Philadelphia received extra money for the Convention Center, on top of gaming taxes to reduce the local wage tax.

Friday the city issued a foundation permit to SugarHouse, the first step toward construction.

"Maybe, finally, there isn't local politics involved in this," Wansacz said. *