Former Springfield city councilor Anthony Ravosa Jr.'s bid to bring a casino to East Hartford is up for a public hearing tonight before the town's planning and zoning commission.
The zoning approval for the plan, which aims to see a casino built on the vacant site of the former Showcase Cinemas, is a preliminary step as East Hartford prepares to pitch itself as the location for a newly approved tribal gaming facility that would compete with the planned MGM Springfield casino.
Earlier this month, the Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot tribes, operators of Connecticut's two federal Indian casinos, formalized a partnership as they prepare to begin accepting proposals from municipalities seeking to host the state's third casino.
In a phone interview Wednesday, Ravosa said he expects the bid process to open in early October, and he is working closely with East Hartford to prepare for the proposal.
"In my instance, I'm in lockstep with the town of East Hartford where I have incredible political support," Ravosa said. "We're going to be working collaboratively to be submitting a very ambitious proposal and to make the case that when it comes to site selection, East Hartford and specifically the Showcase Cinemas site, presents the best opportunity for a transformative economic development opportunity."
Ravosa and his development team purchased the site and began pitching a $138 million casino before the gaming bill authorizing a third casino crossed the desk of Gov. Dannel Malloy. The planned MGM Springfield casino project, scheduled to open in 2018, has sparked concerns over lost revenue among Connecticut lawmakers and casino operators. A study funded by the Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot tribes concluded that new casinos in Massachusetts and New York could cost Connecticut 9,300 jobs.
Ravosa, who in 2010 partnered with Western Mass. political consultant Anthony Cignoli in a years-long and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to build a casino in Holyoke, said the political atmosphere in the Connecticut drove him to invest before a new casino was formally authorized.
"I secured this site well in advance of any discussion really going public, because I believed this was the direction it was going to go and it was going to happen," he said.
Ravosa's proposal included between 1,000 and 2,000 gaming machines, dining and drinking options, a dance club, and over 1,200 parking spaces. The development team for the East Hartford project includes Vince Group Inc., of Glastonbury, Connecticut, as developer, and JCJ Architecture of Hartford, as architect, according to the project's initial presentation.
East Windsor and Enfield are also considering bids for the project, according to the Hartford Courant.
Ravosa said he was not changing his approach due to the federal lawsuit filed by MGM Resorts International against the Connecticut gaming act. In an August legal complaint, MGM alleged that the law, which restricts the development of the new casino to a partnership between the Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot tribes, is unconstitutionally discriminatory.
"From my vantage point, I'm in the mindset of controlling what I can control," Ravosa said.
Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno said much the same thing when asked about possible competition from Connecticut casinos during a Tuesday press conference announcing changes to the MGM Springfield site plan.
"We cannot control what does or does not happen in the state of Connecticut," Sarno said.
East Hartford officials did not immediately return a request for comment.
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