(NECN: Peter Howe, Everett, Mass.) – Gritty, industrial corners of Greater Boston don’t get much grittier or more industrial than the stretch of Route 99 along the Charlestown-Everett line, home to a scrap-metal collector, a car-shredding business, a 2,100-megawatt electric power plant, liquefied natural gas terminal, wind-powered sewage pump station, and a constant flow of 18-wheeler trucks.
But after striking out with his bid for a casino across from Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Las Vegas magnate Steve Wynn is looking right here – specifically, a 35-acre parcel along the Mystic River – as a potential site for a $500 million “destination resort” casino. He’s set to tour the area Wednesday and meet reporters with Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria, DeMaria aides said.
It could become a direct challenge to the Suffolk Downs/Caesars Entertainment casino plan for the horse track site on the East Boston/Revere line, but very popular with many here for the jobs and economic infusion it could bring.
“I think it’s a very good idea,” said Leon Bernier, a Haitian immigrant who’s lived in Everett for 23 years. “That will bring people in town, hotels, restaurants.”
Ryan Johnson of neighboring Malden said: “I think it’d fit in well, especially with bringing jobs into this community. It’s definitely time to get America out and working.”
Carl Jenkins of accounting/consulting giant CBIZ Tofias, who wrote a widely respected and cited 2008 economic analysis of casinos for the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, which wound up endorsing legalized casino gambling, said an Everett casino would raise many of the same issues as Suffolk Downs does.
“It has some of the same problems as the Revere location. I’m not sure that the traffic on 99 is any better or worse than the traffic issue on route 1A for the Revere location,” Jenkins said.
Noting the water frontage on the Mystic River, just south of the Amelia Earhart lock and dam, Jenkins said, “You can imagine somebody, if they had an imagination, might have some boat transportation from downtown or from the airport” to improve access to the site, which is a long walk from the Sullivan Square or Wellington MBTA Orange Line stations and abuts, but has no station on, the Newburyport/Rockport T commuter rail line.
It’s no overstatement to call the location environmentally challenging. Predecessors of Monsanto used the site for decades to manufacture acids and store numerous chemicals. The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority dumped tons of Boston Harbor “tunnel muck” from its $4 billion harbor cleanup project and sewer construction there in the 1990s. Signs of petroleum wastes, lead, and asbestos hint at a likely witches’ brew of contaminants that would have to be cleaned, removed, or capped as part of a casino development.
But, Jenkins said, one key appeal of the Everett casino talk is it could end the perception that Suffolk Downs — heavily favored by state House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino — has a lock on winning the one eastern Massachusetts casino license authorized by the state’s 2011 gambling law.
“Competition is good, and I think that’s the whole purpose of the legislation and the Gaming Commission, what it’s all about,” Jenkins said. “Having a second bidder, even in a far from perfect site, has got to be beneficial … hopefully it means better offers, more money, better benefits for the neighboring communities, more jobs.”
With videographer Daniel J. Ferrigan.
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