Pa. awards last racing license
A track is to be built near the Ohio border. The parent firm now plans to seek a slots permit.
HARRISBURG - Pennsylvania's last available harness racing license was awarded yesterday to a company that plans to build a track near the Ohio line, making it the odds-on favorite to get a lucrative slots license.
The Pennsylvania Harness Racing Commission voted, 2-0, to license Valley View Downs L.L.P. for a site in Lawrence County. Valley View officials said the company would buy the land from a group that was its competitor in seeking permission for a harness track.
Valley View's parent company, Centaur Inc. of Indianapolis, abandoned a plan previously rejected by the commission to build in Beaver County. Instead, it will pay $75 million for 250 acres and all the stock in Bedford Downs Management Corp.
Centaur intends to spend $420 million to build the facility, and expects gross revenues to exceed $400 million by 2010. It plans to serve up to 14,000 customers daily, hire about 1,000 full- and part-time workers, and create another 1,200 jobs indirectly.
The site northwest of New Castle is about 55 miles from Pittsburgh and only 12 miles from Youngstown, Ohio; Centaur predicted the casino would attract customers from the Cleveland area.
Gambling regulators can convert the seventh slots license reserved for horse racing tracks into one for use by a stand-alone slots casino if no harness track has applied for it by July 2009. Under the latter scenario, the license could go anywhere except Philadelphia, Pittsburgh or within 15 miles of another facility.
Valley View Downs and Bedford Downs officials both said that looming deadline motivated them to strike a deal.
Centaur officials immediately announced they would aggressively pursue a license from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board to install up to 5,000 slot machines, hoping the track and casino will be operational in 2009.
Bedford president Carmen W. Shick said he intended to build a water park, hotel and other businesses on about 300 acres he and his siblings will retain that surround the Valley View tract.
Centaur plans to build its own hotel on the land it is purchasing from Bedford Downs. The two entities will not be partners in the gambling or racing operations.
Pennsylvania already has three harness-racing tracks with casinos: Harrah's Chester Downs in Chester, the Meadows in Washington County and Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs, near Wilkes-Barre.
Centaur officials said they have not determined what the company would do with the Beaver County tract on which it had previously planned to construct Valley View Downs. That property was rejected because of problems with access and the track's design.
Bedford Downs was previously denied a harness license because the commission concluded Shick's grandfather, Carmen Ambrosia, did business with former Youngstown mob boss Lenine "Lenny" Strollo. The commission, however, said there was no implication that Shick or his partners had ties to organized crime.