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Residents need help to successfully negotiate with the casino applicants, all of which are large, well-funded corporations. Specifically they need more time, money and information from city and state officials if casinos are to operate in our community without irrevocably changing the surrounding neighborhoods for the worse.
The five casinos proposed for Philadelphia are probably the largest economic development projects many residents will see in their lifetimes. Applicants say they will spend between $229 and $400 million on the first phase of their casinos alone. In terms of sheer size, the Philadelphia casinos would be comparable to the largest casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City.
| Casino | Location | Size of Gaming Floor | Number of Slot Machines |
|---|---|---|---|
| MGM Grand | Las Vegas strip | 171,500 sq. ft. | 3,000 |
| Borgata | Atlantic City | 120,000 sq. ft. | 3,650 |
| TrumpStreet | East Falls, Philadelphia | 150,000 sq. ft. | 5,000 |
| Foxwoods | Riverfront, South Philadelphia | 160,000 sq. ft. | 5,000 |
At full build-out the Philadelphia casinos will have more slots than the Borgata or MGM Grand. It also appears possible that the impact of the Philadelphia casinos will be far more severe on the local community than in either Las Vegas or Atlantic City.
In Vegas large on-site hotels (i.e., 2,000-3,000 rooms) mean that gamblers walk and don't drive to the casinos. This is not the case in Philadelphia where most gamblers will arrive by car. Whether through design or natural selection, n Vegas and Atlantic City a half mile buffer zone exists between the casinos and the nearest residential neighborhoods. In Philadelphia no such buffer zone exists. The casinos will all be built within a block of residential neighborhoods.
Despite the immensity of the projects under consideration, public debate on the casinos has been rushed and poorly informed. In an effort to bring gaming revenue on-line this year, the Gaming Board has adopted an aggressive timetable:
Even though residents have just four weeks to get their comments on the record, information about the casinos' plans continues to be fragmented, incomplete and hard to understand. While the Gaming Board did release the casinos' local impact reports in March they did so in response to a public outcry. Since then the Board has not released any other documents in its possession. The local impact report is just one of 41 documents applicants filed with the Board in December.
In June, 2005 the city released this final report to the public. While it seems likely that city officials have been working on the casino issue these past ten months, whatever it is they have been doing has been done in private, without consulting residents. To date city officials have done little to prepare, educate or directly assist residents with the casinos. Because the report was written before the locations of the casinos was known, it only deals in general terms with the likely impact of casinos on neighborhoods. For this reason, it is too general to be of help to residents on many issues.
A group of neighbors from all over Philadelphia has called on the City and State to act. Read the letter here.
Ed Goppelt, Faxbank Manager
webmaster@hallwatch.org
