Pa. casino license goes to Nemacolin

HARRISBURG - Within nine months, the state's 11th casino will open in southwestern Pennsylvania at the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort as a result of its nabbing the second and, for now, final casino-resort license from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board on Thursday.

Just as noteworthy as the board's 6-1 vote was its rejection of a controversial proposal to place a casino near the Gettysburg battlefield. The debate over whether to put a casino near what many consider sacred ground drew national attention and sparked two days of heated testimony last summer among residents, historians, and businesses.

About 40 members of No Casino Gettysburg and other battlefield-preservation groups, who took up four rows near the front of the State Museum Auditorium, erupted into loud applause and cheers as soon as Board Chairman Gregory C. Fajt announced just before 10:15 a.m.: "The second casino-resort license goes to Woodlands Resort."

"This isn't a win for us. It's a win for posterity," said Charles McElhose, who wore a T-shirt bearing his group's name.

"It allows for a certain future, where my kids and their great-grandkids will benefit because they will see the battlefield untarnished and not reduced to something less than it is."

McElhose said his group was now focused on creating a buffer zone around the landmark to protect it from development "so we won't see this come up every five years."

Timing was in the anti-casino groups' favor, said Nicholas Redding of the national preservation group Civil War Trust, which since the 1980s has preserved more than 30,000 battlefield acres, 800 of them at Gettysburg.

Redding noted that on April 12, 1861, the firing began on Fort Sumter in South Carolina, and two days later the war had its first casualty.

"This is a wonderful way to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the war," he said. This casino "did not fit the character of Gettysburg."

David LaTorre, who represented the backers of the proposed $75 million Gettysburg casino, Mason-Dixon Resorts L.P., said he was disappointed by the outcome. He acknowledged that the strong effort by preservation groups had influenced public opinion against the project.

The casino was to sit six miles from Maryland and a half-mile from the boundary of Gettysburg National Military Park.

"There's no question our project was going to generate the most money for Pennsylvania taxpayers, and we would not have competed with any other Pennsylvania casino," LaTorre said. "We had our supporters, who outnumbered the opposition."

The board favored Nemacolin on the ground that it fit the prototype of a world-class resort, with its two championship golf courses, spa, restaurants, 335-room hotel, 30-station shooting academy, trail rides, ski facilities, and private airfield, among other amenities. Its website describes the 2,000-acre Nemacolin site as "one of North America's premier resort destinations."

Lady Luck Nemacolin, as the casino will be called, is to open in nine months with 600 slot machines and 28 table games, according to Isle of Capri Casinos Inc. of St. Louis, which will manage the casino.

Under the 2004 gambling law, Pennsylvania can open 14 casinos, half at horse-racing tracks. So far, 10 are running and now offer table games, though recent amendments to the law will enable the board to consider a third casino-resort license after 2017.

Two more licenses are up for grabs: the one belonging to the Foxwoods group, which was recently revoked, and the other for a racetrack casino.

The first casino-resort license was awarded to the Valley Forge Convention Center in April 2009, which was just recently given the go-ahead from the state Supreme Court to begin construction after a court challenge by Bensalem's Parx.

The Valley Forge Casino is to open in early 2012, according to Adrian R. King Jr., the lawyer who represents the Valley Forge investor group and Nemacolin.

The lone vote against Nemacolin was cast by Kenneth I. Trujillo, who favored the casino project for the Fernwood Hotel & Resort in the Poconos. He said he thought it had the potential to draw customers from New York and North Jersey.

The board also turned down a project for a 40,000-square-foot casino at the Holiday Inn West on Route 11 in Mechanicsburg, near Harrisburg.

"I'm thrilled," said Joe Hardy, chief executive officer of 84 Lumber, which owns Nemacolin, as he spoke to reporters outside the auditorium just after the announcement. "We won for the home team."

In addition to having at least a 275-room hotel, each resort applicant had to be more than 15 miles from any other Pennsylvania casino.

The new $50 million casino will be about an hour's drive from the Meadows Racetrack & Casino in North Strabane Township, Washington County, and Rivers Casino, in downtown Pittsburgh.

Those permitted to use the casino include registered overnight guests and patrons of one or more of the resort's amenities.

Nemacolin draws visitors from a 500-mile radius, including Washington and Baltimore, Hardy said. He said he expected some casino clientele would be people also interested in golf.

"They love to gamble," he said.