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to promote civic engagement in the Philadelphia region.Foxwoods/Gallery Casino could be open by Dec 2009
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 3:23 pm - by Matt Campbell. Filed under: Casinos.
Updated:
The blog Plan Philly says things could happen very fast with one of Philadelphia’s planned casinos. A Foxwoods key investors is quoted as saying the Center City casino could begin operations by the end of next year. This target date came out of a meeting yesterday between Brian Ford, chief executive of Washington Philadelphia Investors LP and the Central Philadelphia Development Corp, an advocacy arm of the Center City District. Another tidbit, reported by Plan Philly, is that the Foxwoods Casino would take the space currently occupied by the Burlington Coat Factory store. When the move was first announced, there was talk about the casino being built on top of the existing downtown mall structure.
Plan Philly also says Philadelphia chinatown leaders plan to meet tomorrow with the a representative from the mayor’s office, city’s mayor, their councilman, and their house representative to air their concerns over the planned casino. The Gallery Mall is located just south of Chinatown.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Uhhh, c’mon, do we really have to just accept Foxwoods public relations spin?? This was the same company that said quite assuredly that they would be open on the waterfront and that they were not interested in looking at alternate sites. That spin didn’t turn out to be accurate.
Also, let’s be clear about who is behind these casinos. In the case of Foxwoods, its the Family Foundation of Ron Rubin, who is the main principal in the Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust; and the family foundation of Ed Snider, the principal behind the Sixers and Flyers. These guys are both longtime contributors and friends of Governor Rendell. These connections should be mentioned in every article.
Oh yeah, Ron Rubin was the first chairman of the Center City District and PREIT is currently a member of the PCDC. Gee, how convenient. D’ya think these disclosures should be made?
October 8th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Paul thank you for adding more context for us. But I”m still a little unclear of what your getting at. Are you saying yesterday’s meeting, in effect, was Foxwoods meeting with Foxwoods?
The way I read it, yesterday’s meeting was between a pro business group and a casino so the fact that the talk was upbeat shouldn’t surprise us, should it?
It’s the Chinatown meeting scheduled for tomorrow where we can expect to hear concerns about Foxwoods.