by Josh Resnek
Each hour brings the city closer to the new era about to dawn in this city.
The opening of the casino and hotel on June 23 is racing closer and closer, causing spirits to rise among those who understand what is about to happen.
This is not a time for naysayers.
It is a time for soaring hopes in the belief that the casino and hotel will bring financial security to the city for decades to come.
If the opening comes off neatly, the success begins there.
This sprawling, almost exotic, testament to Steve Wynn’s genius as a businessman, should become a beacon in the day and the night to those seeking luxury in their hotel accommodations, and the excitement of casino gambling with all the fixings, including Italian food prodigy Frankie DePasquale’s restaurant among many others.
Here is what is happening.
The hotel puts on line 671 rooms with 104 luxury suites.
They are the largest and most luxuriously furnished and appointed rooms in Greater Boston with a five star rating.
This alone creates a boomtown for the city.
If the rooms are all occupied all the time, as expected, the city will pocket about $6 million – $10 million a year in room taxes alone.
In addition, the city will collect $25 million a year in lieu of tax payments from Wynn Resorts paid out on a quarterly basis, this, according to the City of Everett’s Chief Financial Officer Eric Demas.
In addition to that, there will be the city’s cut of the state’s tax revenues flowing from the casino.
When the doors open on June 23, more than 4,000 gaming positions – slots, table games, even State Lottery Scratch tickets will be available to the mobs expected to descend upon the place.
There is no way to know exactly what the city will receive as a result of having this project on our shore.
The only thing to know: it will be a lot of money flowing into the city treasury all the time if things go well.
If things go only half well, it remains a bonanza for Wynn Resorts and for the city.
The other bonanza is the return to public use of what was formally one of the city’s most polluted pieces of land stretching down to the shore of the Mystic River.
The public harborwalk, a ferry system dropping tourists coming over from Boston at the front of the hotel, and acres of lush new plantings and rich green grass and flowers, aids in making the new casino and hotel one of the great commercial and natural wonders of Greater Boston.
Traffic control and parking remain a sticky point of concern. However, hundreds of Wynn personnel as well as local and state police and traffic experts will be weighing and measuring the difficulties of moving around on crowded roads.
“Whatever problems arise will be dealt with as they come up,” John Tocco, Wynn’s community relations vice-president said at a recent city hall conference – one of dozens he has attended during the construction phase.
The door opening does not end the legal issues and law suits surrounding the granting of the license – but all of those will be worked out or settled in court or out of court, or will explode again taking down those who corrupted the system.
The casino and hotel will survive and flourish despite all that.
The new era is dawning.
The countdown is continuing.
June 23 is one of the biggest days in this city’s modern history and a key to the city’s financial future well being.
Put your seat belts on.
Ready, set, done!