ToCasino.net Online Casino

By Adam Vaccaro

Boston.com Staff | 03.03.15 | 5:34 PM

Wynn Resorts has closed a deal on crucial MBTA-owned land adjacent to its Everett casino site. Wynn is paying $6 million for 1.75 acres. That’s about $3.4 million per acre. For comparison, Wynn paid $35 million for the 33-acre former Monsanto site that is expected to eventually house its casino—$1.06 million per acre. (It had originally offered $75 million for the land, or $2.27 million per acre.)

Sure, you can buy cheaper in bulk. But it’s been no secret that Wynn highly valued the MBTA land it just bought up. The company needs the property as an access road to the site, due to a weird little twist in city boundaries. The existing access road to the Wynn site falls partially within Boston boundaries, a major point of leverage for the city as it has feuded with Wynn over the last year and change.

Wynn has had its eyes on the MBTA land for years, and will build a road upon it to bypass Boston.

The access road was a big reason Boston sought to claim host community status for the Wynn casino last year, and an important piece of the city’s lawsuit against the Massachusetts Gaming Commission over the casino, too. The suit, filed in January, seeks to reopen the city’s claim of host community status, which would give city residents the ability to vote on whether or not the casino could get built, and to negotiate for more mitigation money from Wynn. The city references the access road in saying it deserves the status.

The access road is just one component of Boston’s suit. It also argued that it would also bear the brunt of traffic in Sullivan Square, and that the gaming commission didn’t do due diligence in thinking about traffic mitigation for the city. And the suit questioned whether Wynn should have even legally been able to win the sole Boston-area casino license in the first place following the indictments of some of the landowners from which Wynn planned to buy the Everett parcel. Asked whether the city felt the deal would have an effect on the lawsuit, mayoral spokesperson Bonnie McGilpin cited the pending litigation in declining to discuss specifics. “Mayor (Martin) Walsh is taking this action to protect the City and the neighborhood of Charlestown,” she said.

For as important as the land was for Wynn, the T is giving up just a small portion of its land in the area. MBTA spokesperson Joe Pesaturo said it will have no impact on operations at the repair and maintenance facility there, except that it will be getting a “safer, more convenient entrance” to the facility, built by Wynn.