With mayor aboard, casino idea rolls
Menino's backing developed slowly
On a warm Sunday in June, Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston mingled in the crowded Suffolk Downs grandstand for the racetrack's annual Hot Dog Safari, where families and guests fawned over animals at a petting zoo, thronged a cotton candy stand, and swarmed a vendor handing out thousands of hot dogs and sausages.
A track shareholder and politically connected businessman, Joe O'Donnell, approached the mayor, his longtime friend, who was sipping water and chomping on a hot dog.
"I want you to meet someone," O'Donnell said, motioning to his side. "This is Richard Fields, the new owner of Suffolk Downs. He's the guy who I think is going to change the atmosphere around here."
Moments after they shook hands, Fields began laying out for Menino a grand vision for Suffolk Downs. A large hotel. A shopping complex. An entertainment area to attract concert- and theater-goers. And at the center of it all, a full-scale casino with blackjack, roulette, and slot machines.
Menino immediately pledged his full support, the mayor confirmed in recounting the meeting to the Globe, and the conversation was over no more than 10 minutes after it began.
"Look at what they're doing down in Connecticut, and how many of those cars are Massachusetts cars," Menino said in an interview last week. "Why can't we do something at Suffolk Downs?"
While the encounter might have seemed random, and Menino's support spur-of-the-moment, neither could be further from the truth.
In fact, the meeting between Fields and Menino at the Hot Dog Safari had been 10 years in the making. Fields had tried in 1996 to bring a casino to Boston, but had been rebuffed by the mayor and others. This time, Fields's vision for a glitzy resort casino is front and center in the state's debate over legalizing casinos.
Fields manuevered into this position by skillfully assembling a moneyed, politically connected dream team of lobbyists and businessmen to vie for a prize that will be worth billions - a Massachusetts casino license.
Menino, all the while, had been undergoing a long and gradual transformation on the issue of casino gambling, one that seemed to crystallize in the meeting with Fields, as the mayor shifted from a lukewarm supporter of slot machines to an all-out ambassador for a resort casino.
The result: The Suffolk Downs partners now have a detailed plan, support from the mayor, and a big opening with Governor Deval Patrick's vision to include a casino in Greater Boston as part of his plan to legalize three resort casinos across the state.
"It's like you're Johnny Appleseed, walking through the desert putting seeds in the ground and nothing grows," O'Donnell said. "But then the temperature changes, and all the sudden you've got an apple orchard. We've been tossing seeds at this thing for 10 years, but it never worked. It's time."
Suffolk Downs, whose big electronic sign is a landmark along East Boston's gritty stretch of Route 1A, was once a glamorous venue where thousands packed the stands each day. Governors from all six New England states showed up for the opening in 1935, and two years later Seabiscuit ran before an estimated crowd of 66,000. It's where the Beatles sold $4.50 tickets for their last Boston concert.
But with the rise of state lotteries, casinos, and Internet gambling, attendance for live racing has fallen drastically over the years - declining 51 percent in the last decade to 276,780 in 2006. The amount wagered on live races at the track has declined 19 percent in the last decade, to $141 million in 2006.
Now the greatest value in Suffolk Downs, as in most racetracks across the nation, is their potential as a casino site.
Richard Fields, who has also partnered with Las Vegas mogul Steve Wynn and pursued casino deals in Florida, New York, and California, started eyeing Suffolk Downs in 2005. Seven months ago, he purchased between 40 and 50 percent of the track, making him the largest shareholder.
With a gritty racetrack, he started hedging bets not only that the governor would legalize casinos in Massachusetts but also that Suffolk Downs would win a bid for a license.
"Having worked on the team responsible for creating one of the most successful resort-style casinos in America, I could see that Suffolk Downs was the logical choice for me to consider for a multipurpose entertainment complex," Fields said in a statement provided to the Globe
"I only do projects where people say it can't be done," Fields told the Globe in June, referring to his plans for Suffolk Downs with or without gambling. "This is a big one, baby . . . I've made a big bet here."
In many ways, Fields is an unlikely driving force behind a gambling revolution in Massachusetts, coming into a city that bristles at having an outsider tell it how things should work. Not only that, but the proposal Fields is championing will have a major impact on the city - and perhaps, critics fear, diminish its rich historic culture.
Fields, who declined to be interviewed for this story, is a New York native who dropped out of Boston University and now has a cattle ranch in Wyoming and owns hundreds of horses. He was once the manager for rock star Pat Benatar, and spent the early 1990s working as manager for Marla Maples, who had a budding Broadway career and a new relationship with business mogul Donald Trump.
Fields and Trump quickly became such close friends that Fields's wife, Meeka, was in the room with Maples in 1993 when she delivered daughter Tiffany.
By 1995, Fields was helping Trump on efforts to expand his New Jersey-based casino outfit, and Fields started coming to Boston to push a Trump casino, marina, and residential development on Boston Harbor's Long Island.
He met with state senators, city officials, and the chief of staff for House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran. But all the meetings scheduled with Menino were canceled. The mayor says now that he doesn't remember even hearing Fields's name. "I'm not going to spend time on casinos for the city of Boston," Menino told the Globe at the time.
Trump's plans in Boston never gained traction and the relationship between Fields and Trump went sour in 2000, when Trump asserted that Fields pilfered his plans to build two casinos in Florida on land owned by the Seminole Indian Tribe.
By 2004, Fields and his new partner, a Baltimore-based real estate firm, opened a Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in both Tampa and Hollywood, Fla. Trump then sued Fields for $1 billion in a case that is ongoing.
Fields has used his work on those projects to showcase what he could bring to Boston: a massive casino with shops, convention space, and landmark hotels.
When he purchased the track, Fields brought with him William J. Mulrow, a Westchester County investment banker who has partnered with him on several other casino development deals. Mulrow, who in 2002 ran unsuccessfully for New York state comptroller, in August was named chairman of the board of directors at Suffolk Downs.
The board also includes billionaire Stephen R. Karp, who founded the real estate firm New England Development; Clifford Broser, a senior vice president at
But the linchpin for the Suffolk Downs proposal has been political insider and businessman O'Donnell, chairman of Boston Culinary Group, which sells concessions at airports, convention centers, and sports complexes.
If Fields is the engine behind Suffolk Downs, O'Donnell has provided the roadmap for navigating Boston's clubby political culture.
O'Donnell, who has been one of the top shareholders at Suffolk Downs for 18 years, now is the second-largest shareholder behind Fields. He is also one of Menino's closest friends and advisers, particularly on development deals.
"Joe O'Donnell is probably the most well-respected guy in the state," said state Representative Brian Wallace, a South Boston Democrat who is helping lead the effort in the House to legalize casinos. "Having him at Suffolk Downs helps them a whole bunch."
O'Donnell, an affable, silver-haired Everett native, has slept at the White House and attended baseball games with President Bush. He is close friends with former governor Mitt Romney, and reliably gives campaign contributions to his former Malden Catholic High School classmate, US Representative Edward J. Markey.
In May 2005, Boston Magazine published a list of "The 100 People Who Run This Town." O'Donnell ranked first. His friend the mayor was 10th.
He tried unsuccessfully to buy the New England Patriots in 1987, and the Boston Red Sox in 2002, and he is the type of guy who measures distances by the golf club it would take to get him there - as in, "we're a 9-iron from the airport, and an 8-iron from the convention center."
"I've stayed low profile. I'm not a casino guy and I don't have Fields's experience," said O'Donnell, who defined his role as "the local guy." "But I do know this city. I haven't moved 4 miles since I was born."
"These aren't 10 outsiders just coming into Boston," he added. "I'm behind this thing, as well." When he introduced Fields to the mayor, it was at his own hot dog charity event, benefiting the "Joey Fund," a charity O'Donnell established after his 12-year-old son died of cystic fibrosis in 1986.
Just before the introduction, Fields pulled O'Donnell aside and said he would match the amount raised by the charity that day. O'Donnell mentioned that to Menino in the introduction, which helped put Fields in the mayor's good graces.
Menino said he also had Fields into his wood-paneled office several months ago to offer his plans in further detail.
Menino went public with his support for a casino at Suffolk in mid-July, as the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe was involved in tense negotiations with town officials in Middleborough over a proposal to build a destination resort casino.
The mayor surprised everyone by inviting the tribe to come to Boston and build their casino at Suffolk Downs.
The move would have been legally impossible - the tribe is limited to a 50-mile radius from its tribal lands in Mashpee - but that didn't matter to Menino. He just wanted to bring prominence to the idea of a casino at Suffolk Downs by putting it on newspapers' front pages and evening television newscasts.
"Honestly, commercial or tribal, you know, let's just get the job done," said Menino, who was the first to talk publicly of a casino resort at Suffolk, despite months of quiet planning by track officials.
It was a major shift for the mayor, who had offered tepid support for past proposals to expand gaming at Suffolk Downs, generally declining to comment or responding that he "had an open mind" on the issue. In the mid-1990s, early in his tenure as mayor, he toyed with the casino idea and even had a meeting scheduled in New York with Trump. But he backed out of that meeting, saying he was more concerned with building a convention center. In recent years, the mayor started advocating for slot machines as a way to revitalize the track, but his support was measured.
"I was stunned," Wallace said of Menino's comments in July. "I spoke to him two years ago about slots, and he was hemming and hawing. This time, he sees that he can get it done, and I think he trusts the people at Suffolk Downs."
Menino said that about a year ago he began thinking of Suffolk Downs as a larger development, something that would revitalize the ailing East Boston oval. But until Fields, no one had come up with a proposal that he could fully support.
"This had a diversity of activities. You had retail, restaurants, entertainment, hotels," Menino said. "I don't believe slot machines do anything for you. You need that diversity of activities, and that's what this brought."
Still, Menino insisted to the Globe that he never spoke with Patrick about casinos, and, aside from public pronouncements, never lobbied on Suffolk's behalf.
By early July, Fields had partnered with O'Donnell, and O'Donnell had unlocked the mayor's office. But there were more hurdles, and none were higher than an opening from the governor, who was still weighing whether to support licensed casinos in Massachusetts.
To carry their case to the state, Fields and O'Donnell built a high-powered dream team of Beacon Hill lobbyists to present their case to the governor and meet with key players in the state Legislature.
According to the secretary of state's office, those on the Suffolk Downs payroll include former speaker of the House Charles F. Flaherty; Shapiro, former budget director for the House Ways and Means Committee; and longtime Beacon Hill lobbyist Richard McDonough, whose other clients include Cambridge Health Alliance and Anheuser-Bush.
As of June 30, the most recent figures available, Suffolk had paid $96,625 - far more than any other lobbying team hired on casinos. Suffolk has also spent more than twice as much on lobbyists this year as it did in 2006 and 2005 during the same period.
They now have seven registered lobbyists. Last year, they had two.
The stakes were high on July 5 when a four-member team from Suffolk Downs privately met with Daniel O'Connell, the governor's economic development secretary and chief gaming adviser. It was a week before Menino would publicly start calling for a casino at Suffolk Downs.
The Suffolk Downs representatives - Mulrow; Charlie Baker, a Democratic polical consultant and longtime attorney for Suffolk Downs; lobbyist David Shapiro; and John Stefanini, a former state representative who is also an attorney for Fields - started their power-point presentation with two photos, one of horses running out of the gate at Suffolk Downs, the other of Fenway Park with the sun setting over right field.
Drawing on the state's most cherished sports landmark, they argued in their presentation that a casino would revitalize horseracing and rescue the track - just as the Red Sox owners helped rescue the historic ballpark, according to documents from the governor's office and a copy of the presentation provided to the Globe.
Patrick advisers met with nearly a dozen other would-be casino operators as part of their seven-month review, but the Suffolk Downs presentation was far more detailed than any others, according to the documents assembled for the governor to review before making his decision.
To entice their audience, Suffolk officials also included a 55-page report called "Suffolk Downs: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow." It included photos and schematic drawings of the casinos Fields helped develop in Florida, complete with a massive water-fountain in a man-made lake, a 12-story Mediterranean-style hotel, and palm trees surrounding an outdoor shopping area.
At Suffolk Downs, the plans said, they would build by 2011 a 4.5-million-square-foot complex that would include 5,000 slots and 150 gaming tables, a 2,000-seat theater, 1,000 hotel rooms, and 50 shops. They would also build a spa, a nightclub, and a 100,000-square-foot conference area. By 2013, they would expand their space.
hey estimate 5,600 full-time jobs, paying on average more than $40,000 per year, would be created.
The Suffolk effort made huge strides four weeks ago when the governor announced that he would support three licensed casinos in Massachusetts. Included in the proposal - and the only component that mattered to Suffolk Downs - was a license that would be geared for the Greater Boston area.
At his much-anticipated announcement, Patrick also said he wanted a bevy of activity around the casinos - almost identical to the plans Suffolk Downs had presented to his office 10 weeks earlier.
Patrick officials have said that including Greater Boston in the proposal was a logical choice because the city is a transportation hub and provides a tourist base that could be enticed to visit a casino. The administration has declined to discuss any further details of its rationale for including the city region.
The Suffolk plan still faces significant hurdles from Senate President Therese Murray, who has said she is "not crazy" about a Suffolk Downs casino, and House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, who has expressed reservations about any casinos in Massachusetts.
And Suffolk Downs will probably be pitted against at least two other groups: billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is eyeing a casino in the Marlborough area, and the owners of the Wonderland track in Revere, who are working on putting together an investment team, possibly with the operators of Foxwoods in Connecticut.
But so far, it appears, it's the team from Suffolk Downs that is consistently rolling 7s. Still, there's a lot of money still on the table.
And the games have just begun.
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com. 