Mohegan group wants Mass. casino
Signs deal to develop Palmer site
The operators of the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut, rather than fight to keep gaming out of Massachusetts, want to open their own casino in the western part of the state.
The Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority signed an exclusivity deal last week with a development company that owns a 150-acre swath of land in Palmer, near the Massachusetts Turnpike, according to Frank Fitzgerald, a lawyer involved in the deal.
The developers hope to build a retail complex whether or not gaming is approved in Massachusetts. But they have teamed up with Mohegan Sun so that if the state does back commercial gaming, the tribe could apply for a license to operate a casino on the site.
Observers view Mohegan Sun's foray into Massachusetts as a sign that the Connecticut tribe sees expanded gaming in Massachusetts as likely, if not inevitable, especially after Middleborough approved a deal last weekend with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe to bring the state's first casino to the rural Southeastern Massachusetts town. The Mohegan deal also reflects the mania sweeping the state as gambling interests from here and around the country line up for a piece of the action.
Sheldon Adelson, for example, a Dorchester native who made a billion-dollar fortune developing casinos in Las Vegas and elsewhere, visited yesterday with House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, trying to drum up support for a casino along the Interstate 495 rim in Southeastern Massachusetts.
Like other gambling proponents, Adelson has made his pitch to Daniel O'Connell, state secretary of economic development, who headed a study group that compiled data on gambling and turned it over to Governor Deval Patrick last week. Among the documents included was Adelson's market analysis.
Mohegan Sun officials will now begin analyzing the Palmer site to determine how large a casino it could support and what kind of infrastructure improvements would be required. Members of the development team visited Beacon Hill this week to brief legislators and State House casino advocates on their plans.
"I've learned it's never wise to speculate on what may happen in a jurisdiction," said Mitchell Etess, chief executive officer of the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority. "As everybody else, we're keeping our eye on what is happening. There are a million possible scenarios. Clearly, we're very familiar with the Northeast and this market and what people here like."
Etess downplayed the possibility that a casino in Palmer would compete with Mohegan Sun's resort in Uncasville, Conn., which is less than 100 miles away from the Massachusetts town of 12,000. "We're always looking at various ways to diversify our operations," he said, adding that the tribe may also bid to operate New York's three horse racetracks.
Fitzgerald said the owner of the Palmer land, Northeast Realty Associates LLC, which he represents, recently bought the property which had been optioned for a casino years ago. He said Northeast Realty, one of whose partners is a former gambling company executive, has been "aggressively pursing economic development" at the site that could also include retail stores, possibly a hotel and residences.
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"We all know that with what's going on in Middleborough and elsewhere it seems like something may happen," Fitzgerald said. "No one is presuming it will. But in the event that gaming becomes legalized in the state, Mohegan Sun has agreed to assist in master planning for the project."
Because the casino would not be on sovereign tribal land, it would be treated like any other commercial business, subject to state and local taxes. The developers have been meeting with local elected and appointed officials, "so they can ask questions and understand what is possible," Fitzgerald said. "We don't want to foist the project on the town or region."
According to a representative of one of the four Massachusetts racetracks, Mohegan Sun had looked previously to partner with each of the tracks but couldn't reach agreement.
The Palmer town manager, Richard Fitzgerald, said last night that he had not received official word of the Mohegan deal, adding that "the answer I could give would be premature."
It would not be the first proposal to locate a casino in that part of Massachusetts. The Nipmuc Nation, which gained preliminary federal recognition on the last day of the Clinton administration in 2001, took steps to buy about 300 acres in Sturbridge, next to Interstate 84. Those plans collapsed after the Bush administration overturned the recognition in late 2001, saying most of the asserted members of the tribe could not adequately authenticate their Indian ancestry.
The Mohegan tribe, based in Uncasville, next to the Thames River in southeast Connecticut, became wealthy with the success of the Mohegan Sun, which opened in 1996 as a large hall filled with slot machines.
Backing the tribe, which numbered less than 1,000 members, was a local hotelier, Len Wolman, and an international casino mogul, Sol Kerzner. Wolman and Kerzner are now partnered with the Mashpee Wampanoag in its Middleborough plan. They have said that Mohegan Sun is their model for Massachusetts.
Some doubted whether a new casino could compete with the established Foxwoods, opened by the Mashantucket Pequot tribe in 1992. But Mohegan Sun became successful so quickly that by 2002 Kerzner and Wolman had doubled the size of the casino and added a 34-floor hotel, shops, restaurants, and an arena.
The tribe and the Kerzner-Wolman team eventually parted ways, but not before Kerzner and Wolman took a combined $1 billion payday for their efforts. Both went on the hunt for new deals.
John Lizak, a large property owner in Palmer, said yesterday that he sold the property at the heart of the Mohegan deal to Northeast Realty for about $3 million. "It's for the casino, and right now it looks good that it will happen," he said.
Correspondent Marc Robins contributed to this report. 
