The initial site plan for a $1 billion casino that has been informally proposed for a waterfront parcel in New Bedford calls for adaptive reuse of some existing dilapidated mill buildings mixed with new construction.
The casino, dubbed Revere Landing, could be opened as early as 2012, “if we make some fundamental assumptions” about legislation being passed, Northeast Resort Group Manager Leon Dragone said last month. The casino’s name comes from revolutionary Paul Revere, who built the Revere Copper Plant on the proposed site in 1800.
Now the casino plans are being prepared for submittal to the New Bedford Planning Department, he said. Preliminary talks with the city have begun and Philadelphia-based Cope Linder Architects have been brought on to design the project. Peter Pan Bus Lines Inc. is a “significant” partner, Dragone said.
The planned resort could take up 35 acres of the Hicks-Logan neighborhood. But that could grow to about 80 acres, Dragone said. The site was designated by Gov. Deval L. Patrick’s administration during the spring as a “Special Development Zone,” a designation that is designed to streamline permitting for certain developments.
Because the casino would be built in one of the nation’s top fishing ports and an historic mill city, the development would be an attempt to embrace that, Dragone said. Although there are not yet renderings of the building, other than a site plan, “we’re looking at keeping much of the existing mill buildings that are structurally sound,” Dragone said.
“We’d like to have a blend of old and new. In fact, we’ve indicated that we’re looking at rehabbing one of the mill buildings and housing condos or apartments.”
There’s also the waterfront, for which four cafés and seven boat docks are on the initial site plan.
Proposed with a 230,000-square-foot casino floor – with 150 table games, 4,000 slots and more than 4,000 employees – the resort also would have a tower with about 600 hotel rooms. The height of that tower, which on the rendering has a curved frame, has not yet been finalized, Dragone said. “But the scope of the resort would require a 600-room hotel,” he said.
It also would support a five-story, 2,750-space parking garage and separate four-story garage for employee parking. An ice rink and pavilion are also on the site plan.
Along with a push from Patrick – during October 2007, he filed legislation intended to “authorize up to three destination resort casinos” in the state – Dragone said he expects that the City of New Bedford will embrace Northeast’s plans.
“New Bedford has historically been interested in a casino,” Dragone said last week. He cited a study completed earlier this summer by University of Massachusetts–Dartmouth’s Center for Policy Analysis. That study reported that 53 percent of those surveyed supported a casino, 20 percent did not and 27 percent were undecided.
“Since the casino issue was first broached in Massachusetts in 1995, New Bedford residents have consistently and persistently indicated that they are willing to host a resort casino,” Clyde W. Barrow, the center’s director, said in a statement when the results were announced.
“This, at its very core issue, as articulated by Gov. Patrick, is about economic development for the State of Massachusetts,” Dragone said, adding, “How soon do you want the jobs and how soon do you want the revenue stream, which, given the current economic climate, I’d guess the answer is, ‘As soon as possible.’ ”
The draw of casinos in Rhode Island is having a negative impact in Massachusetts, Dragone added. Northeast Resorts Group is now starting traffic engineering study and is talking with construction firms, including Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse Inc., that are familiar with large-scale historic restoration projects, Dragone said. •
