Racetrack sale decision expected soon
Racing will continue under lease; local group could look at buying property
Fort Erie Race Track owners could decide by the end of the month whether they’ll try to sell the 124-year-old track and surrounding property.
The track at 230 Catherine St. and three neighbouring properties are listed for sale online. One of the owners, Carl Paladino of Buffalo, said Tuesday the partners will meet later this month to discuss the track’s future. “It’s still listed,” he said. “(Premier Doug) Ford had indicated he would bring slots back to Fort Erie and with that, we thought it would be worth the effort to keep the property longer and wait that out and see what was going to happen.”
Paladino said he hasn’t been in contact with the provincial government but added, “it would be a great shot in the arm for Fort Erie, bringing the slots back.”
Under the former Liberal government, the slots at the track were closed in 2012. The decision eliminated close to 300 jobs, as well as revenue the slots generated for the town, track and landowner.
In the lead-up to the June provincial election, Ford confirmed he was interested in possibly reopening the slots in Fort Erie.
With a major casino in Buffalo, two in Niagara Falls and slots and electronic table games at the Woodbine racetrack in Toronto, Paladino said “I’ll leave that up to the professionals to figure out” if there is room still for gaming in Fort Erie.
The threat of a possible sale isn’t necessarily bad news to Fort Erie Live Racing Consortium, which leases the track and property and operates Fort Erie Race Track, said chief operating officer Tom Valiquette.
“We lease the track from whoever owns the property” and the lease runs through 2022, he said Tuesday. “If they sell the track, we continue to operate the track.”
He added, “in fact, I think it creates opportunities. We’re alert to exploring ways in which we could possibly get into ownership of the track in a way that would help us.
“The worst-case scenario is it changes hands and we continue to
operate the track as we do. Best case, we get into the ownership.”
Valiquette confirmed there are already talks in Fort Erie about looking into buying the track property, though he wouldn’t disclose the names of individuals or groups involved.
The track employs about 200 people directly, and another 200 work in the backstretch for private owners and trainers.
The track’s U.S.-based owners — Paladino, Joe Mosey and Joel Castle — have separately listed the track site and three nearby properties totalling just more than 300 acres for sale for approximately $17.25 million.
The largest, the track property itself at 230 Catherine St., includes 145 acres for a listed price of $7.2 million.
The next largest property, on Thompson Road across from the track, is 113 acres for $7.2 million. The selling point there might be the 915-metre frontage on the Queen Elizabeth Way.
Two smaller sites are also listed — 39 acres at Bertie Street and Concession Road, north of Catherine Street, for $2.3 million; and a 7.5-acre site at Bertie and Thompson that currently houses old stalls and storage, for $575,000.
“The property we’re thinking of selling is just the track, all the collateral property we would keep to develop,” Paladino said, adding they’ve heard from “four or five tire kickers” since the properties were listed.