Nutter wants review of permit for SugarHouse casino

To build a $550 million casino, first you have to clear some brush and cut down some trees.

To do that, it helps to have a mayor willing to make things happen, even if it happens to be the mayor's last day on the job.

Mayor Street's administration issued a permit Friday - the mayor's last weekday in office - to let the planned SugarHouse casino in Fishtown use heavy machinery to level and grade its site.

Mayor Nutter, during his first day on the job yesterday, asked his new commissioner of Licenses & Inspections, John Elfrey, to make sure the permit was properly issued and consistent with his "commitment to transparency and openness in government," spokesman Doug Oliver said.

The state Department of Environmental Protection on Friday also gave SugarHouse a storm-water-discharge construction permit for the project to proceed.

Leigh Whitaker, a SugarHouse spokeswoman, said workers yesterday started clearing brush and trees at the riverfront site on Delaware Avenue at Shackamaxon Street to prepare for grading to start later this week.

Whitaker said A.D. Marble & Co., the engineering firm hired to do an archeological survey, found no evidence of a former British fort that may have been situated on the vacant lot, which most recently was home to the Jack Frost sugar refinery. That study was required to get the DEP storm-water permit.

The firm plans further study for five areas where it found stone foundations and masonry that it thinks are the remnants of homes, Whitaker said. Those areas are in the southern end of the 22-acre site, the projected location for a hotel that will not be built in the first phase of construction.

SugarHouse is opposed by some residents in nearby neighborhoods and was stalled by City Council. It sued the city in October, asking the state Supreme Court to force the city to rezone its site as a Commercial Entertainment District, allowing construction to start.

The Supreme Court granted that request last month.

Whitaker yesterday said the last-minute permit by Street's staff was proper because of the Supreme Court's ruling.

"We were going to get our permits anyway," she said. "This train is moving forward."