If price is right, Daley still betting on casino

If price is right, Daley still betting on casino
By Gary Washburn and Ray Long
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
August 11, 2007


Mayor Richard Daley may be cool to the current casino proposal in Springfield, but he still wants a gambling palace for Chicago -- if he gets the right deal.

Plans for a Chicago casino that would be tied to a major state funding bill stalled late in the week amid political infighting at the statehouse and a debate about whether the mayor supports the plan.

"Everybody is for the concept, but you have to look at the particulars," Daley said Friday, the latest in a series of noncommittal public comments about the proposal. "It's like a contract, and you start looking at the particulars, and you find out what it is all about."

Daley said a single casino, which some have estimated could produce up to $1 billion in annual revenue, would not generate enough money to fulfill the needs of education, mass transit, bridges, roads and other projects that legislators envision.

"I just want to tell you something. Don't buy the Brooklyn Bridge if someone tries to sell it to you," Daley said.

City Hall sources said the mayor fervently wants a casino, just not the way the legislation is written.

For example, the revenue split is so wide -- with money potentially going to education, schools, construction, mass transit and other projects -- that Chicago could get less than $30 million a year, the sources close to the mayor said.

As host city, Chicago wants a bigger cut of the revenue, possibly in the area of $140 million annually, the mayoral sources said. A portion of that could be used to leverage as much as $1.3 billion for capital, with 60 to 70 percent of the money divided among schools, parks, libraries and museums and the rest for city infrastructure. The rest of that $140 million -- possibly between $50 million and $60 million -- could be used for city operating expenses, the mayoral sources said.

The Daley administration is also skeptical that a casino could start generating money almost immediately. It would take time to plan, license, fund and build such a project -- perhaps several years -- particularly when the fight over the issues surrounding the failed Rosemont casino are taken into consideration, the sources said.

Even if a temporary casino could get up and running, it could take three years or more before the initial amount of money starts coming in, the sources said. It could be twice that long before a full-blown, land-based casino could be operating full out, the sources said. The cost of getting as many as 10 acres of expensive land near downtown, building a parking deck that could handle thousands of cars and constructing a first-class casino would be well over $1 billion, possibly even twice that, depending on the amenities, the sources said.

In Springfield, House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) questioned why senators, who have been working with Gov. Rod Blagojevich, would try to craft a bill on their own when Daley has said "if a proposed casino does not meet his specifications, that he wouldn't give the permit for the construction."

"The mayor has said consistently he's not going to issue the permit unless he agrees with it, OK?" Madigan said. "They all know that."

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