From the Editorial Board: Illinois casinos, it seems, have become like NFL franchises, supremely skilled at lobbying and dangling the promise of revenue to cash-strapped cities but on their own ever-changing terms.
The Hollywood Casino riverboat named City of Lights is docked along the Fox River during its demolition in 2010 in Aurora. The boat, which served for more than a decade, floated on the river for gambling cruises. It later became a stationary casino and then was closed when the land-based casino Hollywood Casino arrived.
The riverboats were supposed to bring people back to these downtowns and, Weidner argued, if Chicago was allowed to big-foot the whole enterprise, the revitalization of these former industrial cities would either be halted or diminished.
On a recent visit, the Hollywood Casino looked sad, diminished and a far cry from its glamour in the 1990s. Last month, its owner, Penn Entertainment, said it wanted to close the long-docked riverboat downtown and rebuild it on a site closer to I-88. They promised a grand new casino in a more convenient location with bars, restaurants and a spa. The plan involved Aurora giving over land the city owned and issuing new bonds to pay up to $50 million toward the cost of the project.
Suddenly, nobody seemed to remember that the whole justification for gambling in Illinois was downtown revitalization, not to support a casino next to the highly successful Chicago Premium Outlets, constructed with the help of public money going to an entity that is highly likely to rake in massive profits all on its own.
, but Oak Street Real Estate Capital will commit to provide up to $300 million more in additional funding to develop the casino. That begs the question of how involved Oak Street Real Estate Capital will be, and how the gaming board will feel about that.
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