City betting on Sullivan Square improvements
Meeting targets casino traffic
Boston officials are putting aside their beef with Wynn Resorts and will attend a meeting today led by state transportation chief Stephanie Pollack to hammer out casino traffic improvements for Sullivan Square in Charlestown.
The stretch of land is at the heart of the ongoing spat between Mayor Martin J. Walsh and Las Vegas gaming mogul Steve Wynn.
City reps skipped a June 1 meeting Pollack called to discuss the traffic fix, citing their lawsuit against the state Gaming Commission over the casino license award. Hub reps will attend today’s session, said Laura Oggeri, a spokeswoman for Walsh.
“The city of Boston is sending representatives to (today’s) meeting to explain the city’s plans for Sullivan Square and Rutherford Avenue as well as to point out the deficiencies in the proponent’s suggestions for those areas in their plans to build a casino,” Oggeri said in a statement yesterday.
Boston has argued Wynn’s plan to put $35 million over 10 years into Sullivan Square would conflict with its pre-existing, $100 million long-term fix for the area, which did not consider casino traffic. The city has griped it was not included in selecting Wynn’s traffic modeling method, and that his plan would include turn lanes that would snarl traffic coming from an Interstate 93 off ramp.
At the June 1 meeting, Pollack “made a brief statement noting that Sullivan Square/Rutherford Avenue has been a problem for a long time and improvements are made more urgent by the” casino, according to a Wynn filing.
The document also said Wynn sent an email to city lawyers after the June 1 meeting “proposing an agreement that would enable all stakeholders, including the city of Boston, to participate in the meetings without compromising their respective claims. The proponent did not receive a response to this email.”
State Transportation Department spokesman Michael Verseckes said in a statement the agency hopes to “continue working cooperatively with the affected communities to identify ways to mitigate traffic that will be generated as a result of the casino.”
Wynn is awaiting a critical certificate from Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Matthew Beaton, due Aug. 28, that will either give him the go-ahead to pursue state permits or send him back to the drawing board to figure out better traffic plans. In April, Beaton called on state and Boston transportation officials to huddle on ways to reconcile conflicting Sullivan Square plans.
As a condition of its license, Wynn agreed to pay $10.9 million to a short-term fix for Sullivan Square, and $25 million over 10 years for the longterm fix. The company has also pointed to funds controlled by Pollack and the commission made up of casino tax revenue as potential sources of $100 million more.