New site a bad bet for Foxwoods?

HARRISBURG - First came what Foxwoods pitched to the state Gaming Control Board as the good news: The casino has a deal to relocate to 8th and Market streets from its original South Philly riverfront site.

Then came the bad news for Foxwoods: A crowd of furious anti-casino protesters pressed forward in the public meeting yesterday, berating representatives of Foxwoods for moving the project so close to Chinatown.

Mary Colins, the board's chairwoman, called for calm and asked the protesters to clear the aisles to allow Foxwoods officials to leave. The protesters, waving signs and screaming insults, didn't budge.

The Foxwoods group was forced to exit over the stage of the State Museum auditorium, where the board members were sitting, and out a back door.

The board called yesterday's meeting due to mounting frustration as two casino projects, approved for the city in December 2006, have been stymied by local politicians and protesters.

Foxwoods, which gave in last year to pressure from Gov. Rendell and Mayor Nutter to move from South Philly, has been considering Market Street East for more than seven months. After ruling out the Gallery, at 11th Street, the casino investors settled on the former Strawbridge & Clothier department store, at 8th Street.

"We have a lease in place," said Brian Ford, CEO of the local investor group, which owns 70 percent of the project. "We have financing in place. All of this came together in the last several weeks."

The investor group later clarified that it has reached "an understanding with the landlord" - the Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust - but still needs to finalize the lease.

The board's one-year deadline for Foxwoods to be open for business expires next month. Foxwoods will file a request to extend its casino license. The project's investors will also file a request for the board to approve its relocation if City Council approves zoning for a casino at 8th and Market streets.

The investors said that they have a plan to finance the renovation of the former store into a casino, which could open with 3,000 slot machines in six to nine months after the board approves the move.

SugarHouse, the city's other proposed casino, also suffered the heckling and hissing of protesters, especially when noting that Nutter and city officials are now backing a modified plan for an interim casino that could be open by this time next year with 1,700 slot machines.

SugarHouse investors also need the board to extend their one-year license to open, which expired in January. A hearing on that request, already filed, will be held next month.

Neil Bluhm, the project's lead investor, said that his partners "don't have a dime in debt" after sinking $160 million into the casino for the license, land and planning. They still need $150 million in financing to build the casino, Bluhm said, but feel confident because that is less than they have invested so far.

Nutter, who initially objected to the casino's Fishtown location, sent the board a letter of support for the project. The state Supreme Court stepped in last month, appointing a "special master" to mediate SugarHouse complaints about stalling tactics by the city.

"We want to look forward and not back," Bluhm told the board. "We clearly are optimistic and see light at the end of the tunnel. We're burying the hatchet. We're moving forward with the city."

Also yesterday, the Gaming Control Board awarded a "resort" casino license to the Valley Forge Convention Center Partners LP, which will install up to 500 slot machines in the Montgomery County venue's hotel.

Unlike other casinos in the state, only overnight hotel guests or patrons of the convention center's other businesses can use the slot machines. A second resort casino license has not been awarded.

The state's 2004 gaming law approved slots at seven horse-racing tracks across the state, five stand-alone slots parlors and two resorts. *