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A rendering of the Live! Hotel & Casino in South Philadelphia.

The leadership team behind the forthcoming $450 million casino in South Philadelphia’s stadium district has released a comprehensive plan outlining its hiring practices. Stadium Casino LLC — a partnership between the Cordish Companies and Greenwood Gaming and Entertainment Inc., owners of Parx Casino — is promising the following:

• Minimum wages of no less than $12.00 per hour for 2,000 permanent jobs and all contractors.

• 47 percent to 58 percent of construction contracts to be awarded to minority or women-owned businesses.

• 50 percent of the permanent workforce will be minorities and 40 percent will be women.

• Approximately 750 table games operators are expected to earn $70,000 per year including tips.

After winning the second and final Philly casino license last November, African American leadership in Philadelphia — like Paula Peebles, local founder and chair of Al Sharpton’s National Action Network — expressed concern about alleged racial discrimination at other Cordish locations. In fact there were eight lawsuits filed against the company since 2010, according to this recent Philadelphia magazine article by Jay McCalla, who has served as a city deputy managing director and chief of staff to Councilman Rick Mariano. One lawsuit claimed that Cordish used restrictive dress codes and other methods to limit black visitors. But in the newly released plan for Philadelphia, Stadium Casino says there will be no dress code in any part of the facility as to operate “in an inclusive and welcoming manner to all guests.” (For the record, the Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity also investigated Cordish and found no evidence of racial discrimination.)

So how do you become a dealer and make $70,000 per year? Stadium Casino is “establishing partnerships with local educational institutions to operate training programs for potential casino dealers and other hospitality workers at the casino,” the plan said.

Here's more from Stadium Casino:

• The construction of the project will lead to the hiring of 3,000 people, all union employees. That will generate approximately $145 million in estimated new wages.
• The organization is establishing a Community Charitable Fund "amounting to a minimum of $15 million in grants from the project to local communities during construction and the 20 years of operations."
• 60 percent of the construction and permanent workforce will be "local residents" and 85 percent will Pennsylvania residents.

Stadium Casino offered these lofty stats on the casino project overall:

• The cost is $450 million.
• It will generate more than $2 billion in economic stimulus to the city.
• It will generate $100 million in tax revenues for the city in the first five years of operation, including $25 million to Philadelphia’s School District.
• It will create 3,000 new construction jobs and 2,000 permanent jobs.

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