Posted: 7:24 pm Thu, December 17, 2009
By Liz Farmer
Daily Record Business Writer
Laurel Park officials laid out their case Thursday that their track is better positioned to get a slots facility up and running than the proposed slots site up the road near Arundel Mills, but others say the track has a long way to go — with or without a slots license.
Tom Chuckas, president of the Maryland Jockey Club, disputed the idea that the track is not a viable alternative to the Arundel Mills site. Since 2003, he said, track officials have been working on getting the permits that are required to build a slots facility there.
He said all that’s left is getting a license to operate slots, which could be done within a year if the application process is opened up again.
This week, Jon Cordish, vice president of The Cordish Cos., which is behind the Arundel Mills proposal, told The Daily Record that “any phantom ‘alternative’ to the Mills site would take years longer and a complete restart” of the proposal process.
On Thursday, Cordish stood by that statement and said in an e-mail that the jockey club’s claims were misguided. Laurel Park is in fact “at the very, very beginning of permitting,” he said.
Tracie Reynolds, the public information officer for the county office of inspections and permits, said that while Laurel appears to have done much of the work, it would need still more construction and building permits before ground could be broken. Those could take a year, she said.
But turning the spotlight on Cordish, a land use attorney for the jockey club said Thursday that the company’s timeline of 5½ months between getting zoning approval and breaking ground on a facility is unrealistic.
Harry Blumenthal said it would take at least three to four years for Cordish to get state, county and especially federal permits to begin building a slots parlor near Arundel Mills. Meanwhile, he said, the jockey club has spent the last six years obtaining traffic and environmental permits required to accommodate the cars and people a slots facility would bring. He also noted Laurel’s acreage and parking capacity was bigger than Arundel Mills’ and better equipped to handle the projected increase in traffic.
“If Laurel were given the opportunity to have slots, Laurel would come [online] much quicker by years than they would come [online] for Arundel Mills,” Blumenthal said.
But according to Reynolds, the Arundel Mill slots site would not require the number of permits Laurel has had to get because the slots facility would be built in an area that already supports commercial establishments.
“Arundel Mills already has the infrastructure in place and could start immediately building once the zoning was approved,” she said. “My understanding is that Laurel Park does not have that.”
Cordish said that if the County Council denied zoning approval, he believed there was no guarantee the state would require Cordish Cos. to relinquish its slots license before letting the company try other measures. And, he said, there’s also no guarantee that whoever buys Laurel Park at next month’s auction would pass muster with the Video Lottery Facility Location Commission and be granted a slots license for the race track if the application process were reopened.
Cordish Cos. submitted the only qualified bid to build a slots parlor in Anne Arundel County this February. The jockey club’s application was disqualified because it did not include the required $28.5 million application fee. The club’s parent, Magna Entertainment Corp., which is in bankruptcy, is disputing the issue in court.
Cordish also brought up Joseph De Francis, a former owner and now prospective bidder for Maryland’s tracks who stands to gain if slots are allowed at Laurel. When De Francis sold the tracks to Magna in 2002, a limited profit-sharing agreement was reached between his family and the company in the event that Laurel got slots.
The race track, along with Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, goes up for auction next month as part of Magna’s bankruptcy proceedings. Cordish said if The Cordish Cos. is the winning bidder, slots at Laurel will not be an option.
“We are bidding for the tracks and expect to be [the] high bidder,” he said. “How does Mr. De Francis propose to get in the game on slots when there is no reason to expect he will own Laurel come January?”
The Anne Arundel County Council is set to vote on the issue on Monday.