MA Casino Developments

I didn't really try too hard...not really sure where the turn is off of 99...was also concerned that the toxic waste would melt my tires so I just kept going
 
^^^^ Got a better shot of seeing Jesus Christ walking around the Vineyard than a casino being built.
 
Its class 2 meaning not Vegas-style. Besides, I don't think anyone really has a say in whether or not it will get built. The Feds gave them the go ahead, the state can do nothing about it.

Regardless, I don't think this development would do very well considering the off season on the island of what, 7-8 months? Who would go?
 
They've been able to do virtually anything they want with their tribal lands for god only knows how many years and they wait until 2013 to trash up the island with a casino.
 
kmp1284 said:
They've been able to do virtually anything they want with their tribal lands for god only knows how many years and they wait until 2013 to trash up the island with a casino.
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They never had confirmation that it was their land, now they do. The state had refused to negotiate because there was no proof that they had the right to the land, the Feds just gave them that right.
 
So I would assume this would disqualify the south coast casino license?
 
kmp1284 said:
They've been able to do virtually anything they want with their tribal lands for god only knows how many years and they wait until 2013 to trash up the island with a casino.
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One of the misnomers of the federal law is that it automatically gives federally recogized tribes the right to a casino.

In actuallity, tribes are only allowed to build casinos in states where such activities are already legal. The reason that Foxwoods and Mohegan in Connecticut exist is because in the late 1980s, the lawyers for the Pequot tribe were able to convince a federal judge that because Connecticut allowed charitable "casino nights," it by extension allowed casino gambling and thus, the Pequots had to be granted a casino license.

I'm not sure if Mass. allows casino nights or not. If not, the tribes would not have been able to propose opening a casino until the state passed the casino bill.
 
They could have gone for a high end resort type of thing but it truly appears that the only way these people know to make a buck is through gambling.
 
If you see kmp carrying a load of blankets, don't offer to help.
 
617 said:
Took a ride by the site in Everett last night, you cant get close to the actual land but the area itself is really ugly...that site will prob sit vacant for the next 50 years if Wynn doesn't clean it up and build a casino. Not sure how they would mitigate transit issues here but right now there's nothing.
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The existing residential on the SE side is a good buffer from the tank farms, and has a great street grid and density. There are a few storefronts mixed in as well, although a lot are converted / boarded up. Take a ride along Bow Street, it feels like Southie. A decent amount of the houses also have manicured lawns/gardens in front, its a blue collar community. You can't do anything about the power plant, but the area to the NW of Broadway could be redeveloped, especially if the MBTA allowed an easement to extend Charlton Street along the boarder of its property. Upzone the hell out of the industrial lots along Broadway and Robin Street, and you could have a nice little pocket community. With the strong industrial presence it will never be high end, which is great because it could actually be affordable. Sullivan Square is about a mile away, and will become vastly more accessable after the whole rebuild of the rotary and Rutherford Ave.

It's an awful, awful place now, but it has loads of potential. After the Rutherford Ave project, I would consider living there.

TheRifleman said:
Do you know how contaminated that land is? It took an extra 10 years to build that strip mall with Home Depot, Target, Fridays, Texas Road House to replace the land fill.

Major Issues for site
Land Contaminated
Traffic Infrastructure
Water Polluted
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The contaminated site could remain just there for a while while the area to the north gets built out. The parcel is pretty far flung and I doubt that anything BUT a casino would attract the investment necessary to clean it up without a building boom in Sullivan Square and Lower Broadway. If that happens though, the site could be more attractive.

Another thing to consider long term could be to expand the Everett garage onto the site, while closing the Charlestown garage and redeveloping that, Assembly Square part deux. That would require intercity agreement on a deal that is worse for Everett than Boston, so it's asking a lot.



I think a lot of what happens with this area hinges on 1) the success of Assembly Square as a nearby case study at building amidst an industrial wasteland and 2) the rebuilding of Rutherford Ave and Sullivan Square and associated development.
 
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Whenever I've wandered around that little semi-residential area of Bow and Robin streets, all I can think is "how can people live here?"
 
davem said:
Another thing to consider long term could be to expand the Everett garage onto the site, while closing the Charlestown garage and redeveloping that, Assembly Square part deux. That would require intercity agreement on a deal that is worse for Everett than Boston, so it's asking a lot.
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No need. The T's bus facility analysis study recommended plunking a bus yard at Wellington so they could close Fellsway garage and downsize Lynn to daytime/in-service terminal only instead of overnight/out-of-service storage. That's the best possible alternative because it would go in that weedy nether-region currently occupied by the old radio station building where it wouldn't bother anyone.

Charlestown garage is irreplaceable. Half of the downtown routes and all of Cambridge/Somerville wouldn't work right if they had to get their buses fed from somewhere further away. But it's not like that pinched 2 blocks of industrial parcels between Sullivan, the train tracks, Alford St., and the river has any redevelopment potential to begin with. The only improvement I could see making is linking the Mystic paths from Assembly to Alford next to the garage fence riverwalk-style.

Everett Shops do a hell of a lot more than buses. That's the pan-MBTA heavy repair facility for rail components, too. It is at least tucked away a block behind Broadway where it doesn't bother anyone. Flipping some of the crud on the Broadway-facing parcels probably does a whole lot more good for the neighborhood and for filling in the development around the casino. The only people at the casino who are going to get a view of the T shops are the employees working by the rear service entrance.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Charlestown garage is irreplaceable. Half of the downtown routes and all of Cambridge/Somerville wouldn't work right if they had to get their buses fed from somewhere further away.
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Would crossing the Alford St bridge really be that big of a hurdle? It seems like a waste of space to have similar facilities facing each other across the river. (Note, NOT advocating closing the everett shops, I realize it's as vital as BET.)

...then again, employees at the everett and somerville home depots could probably play catch with each other across the mystic, so maybe it is a bigger obstacle than I assume.


Also, this is off topic. I apologize.
 
davem said:
Would crossing the Alford St bridge really be that big of a hurdle? It seems like a waste of space to have similar facilities facing each other across the river. (Note, NOT advocating closing the everett shops, I realize it's as vital as BET.)

...then again, employees at the everett and somerville home depots could probably play catch with each other across the mystic, so maybe it is a bigger obstacle than I assume.


Also, this is off topic. I apologize.
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Everett isn't a garage. It's the main repair shop and parts depot. The only buses that go in/out of there are ones undergoing repair. So they really aren't the same purpose at all.

One of the advantages they see in putting Charlestown, Everett Shops, and the new Wellington facility next to each other is to consolidate the employees by location much like they are with the Southampton, Cabot, and Albany St. facilities a few blocks away downtown. They pretty much are conjoined facilities and have enough buses passing all 3 of them for an employee to get across 'campus' in 5 minutes flat once every few minutes.

But still...Charlestown is the one bus facility of 'em all that harms the greatest number of routes, and the system's DENSEST concentration of neighborhood routes...if you move it anywhere further away. There certainly aren't more convenient places it could be plunked and serve the same routes nearly as well.



Copy/pasted from here, the routes run of Charlestown: 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94-(evening and weekends), 95-(evening and weekends), 96-(evening and weekends), 97-(weekends), 99-(evening and weekends), 100-(evening and weekends), 101, 104, 105-(weekends), 106, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 132-(Saturday), 134-(evening and weekends), 136-(evening and Saturday), 137-(evening and Saturday), 194, 325, 326, 352, 355, 411-(Saturday), 430-(evening and Saturday),
62, 64, 67, 68, 69, 70, 70A, 71-(Sunday), 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 350, 351.

That's almost double the number of any other garage.
 
Last slightly off topic post, that Everett workshop is amazing. Especially the Heavy Rail part. I've always thought of those guys as analogous to the Apollo 13 Engineers problem solving the filtration/air system on the LEM.
 
I never actually took a look at where the casino will be located inside Suffolk Downs and I've never been inside. I've driven by it often enough, just not inside.

Here's a couple of current-day maps (same map just one a bit larger) and a rendering of where the proposed casino would have gone.





 
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