The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
MGM talks up casino plans for harbor
BRIDGEPORT — The fate of a bill that could bring a new casino to the state is uncertain, but MGM Resorts International wants to keep its Bridgeport-based project on people’s minds.
A daylong event at Housatonic Community College — largely paid for and organized by MGM — sought to answer questions and re-familiarize officials and business leaders with the entertainment giant’s plans for a casino on Bridgeport’s harbor.
There is a long way to go, however, before that might happen.
State lawmakers led by the Bridgeport delegation introduced a bill last month to form a Connecticut Gaming Commission and create a “competitive bidding process for a resort-casino that would allow the state to choose a development with the most economic impact to the state.”
Saturday’s event was an opportunity for MGM to tell regional leaders that a new casino, in general, would benefit the state.
There were several panel discussions during the symposium at HCC, on topics such as job creation and entertainment, while addressing concerns over how a Bridgeport casino would affect traffic and public safety.
“I think the biggest thing is that, especially on the regional roadways, they are already congested ... but I also think there
are ways to deal with that,” said Keri Pyke, principal of transportation planning at Howard Stein Hudson in Boston, which provided construction management plans to MGM Springfield and other Massachusetts-based casinos.
A potential solution, she said, would be to promote Bridgeport’s alternative transit methods.
Preliminary studies presented by Pyke suggested that with a casino, the area would see 20,000 visitors on a typical weekend making their way to and from Bridgeport by train, bus, and the Port Jefferson Ferry.
“If we could run a shuttle from the property to connect to the bus terminal and train terminal and the ferry, then you can get people out of their cars and give them other ways to get to the site,” she said.
Public safety was another concern. Based on MGM’s venue in Springfield, which uses the help of local and state law enforcement, attendees questioned how many officers a similar venue in Bridgeport would need. Some asked who would have to foot the bill for the law enforcement.
Without studying the site, panelist Jason Rucker, executive director of security at MGM Springfield, was unable to provide a definitive answer.
“The population is a huge piece of it — the arteries in and out and around,” Rucker said. “We (in Bridgeport) are literally downtown within walking distance of umpteen things…we’re very porous on all sides because we are in the middle of a downtown.”
Officials touted Saturday’s event as a way to educate people about the proposed bidding bill and what it could mean for the state, with some saying the MGM was not intended to be the focal point.
But opponents, including a representative of Connecticut’s existing casinos, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun — which have opposed MGM’s designs on Bridgeport — suggested otherwise.
A spokesman for the tribes’ joint venture MMCT, but not the individual tribes, said an invitation to the symposium had been received, but Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun representatives had declined to attend the event.
“Opponents don’t generally take part in each other’s publicity stunts, and that’s exactly what this was,” said spokesman Andrew Doba in an email.