Nemacolin Woodlands hits casino jackpot
?HARRISBURG, Pa. — Lady luck, paired with an attractive business plan, was on the side of Nemacolin Woodlands Resort as it hit the jackpot in its bid to secure a state resort casino license.
Seeing was believing for Pennsylvania’s Gaming Control Board.
Before deciding where the last resort casino license would go, board members visited each of the four proposed locations.
“In my mind, the decision was fairly easy,” said Gaming Board Chairman Greg Fajt. “You really get a sense of what these facilities are about when you can go kick the tires.”
RV tires in Mechanicsburg, no.
Civil War cart wheels in Gettysburg, no.
A Rolls-Royce Phantom at Nemacolin, oh yes!
The ultra-posh resort in Farmington won the license in a 6-1 vote Thursday morning.
The lone dissenting vote came from Ken Trujillo, who favored the Fernwood Resort in the Poconos.
Fajt called Nemacolin “the epitome of what the Legislature intended” when it created the resort casino license.
Nemacolin is one of only six places in the world with a Forbes five-star rating for both its lodging and its dining.
It includes a hotel inspired by world renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright, a chateau modeled after the Ritz Paris, a Tudor-style lodge, luxury homes. It has two golf courses, a 140-acre sporting clay shooting range and fly-fishing expeditions. There are five swimming pools, a 32,000-square-foot spa, four museums and a $45 million art collection. There’s even a zoo.
“There’s not much we don’t have,” said owner Joe Hardy, “and we’re working on that!”
Hardy and his daughter, Maggie Hardy Magerko, who serves as owner and president, were jubilant after the meeting.
Hardy, founder of 84 Lumber Co. and Nemacolin Woodlands, likened the news to winning the Super Bowl.
The permit allows 600 slot machines and, if the board approves it separately, 50 table games. The state’s combined licensing fee is $12.5 million, and a hefty cut of gambling profits also goes to reduce local taxes, underwrite civic construction projects, subsidize the horse-racing industry and aid volunteer firefighting squads.
The 2004 law that put Pennsylvania on the path to becoming one of the nation’s biggest commercial gambling states legalized as many as 61,000 slot machines at 14 casinos. Along with 12 full-size casino licenses, lawmakers created the two smaller resort licenses with Nemacolin in mind.
A group with a hotel-conference center in Valley Forge previously was awarded the other resort license.
St. Louis-based Isle of Capri Casinos Inc. will build and operate the $50 million Nemacolin project. It beat out three other applicants: the Fernwood Hotel & Resort in the Pocono Mountains, the Eisenhower Conference Center near Gettysburg and a Holiday Inn in suburban Harrisburg.
“In partnership with Nemacolin, we designed a project that would exceed the goals of the Pennsylvania Gaming Act by boosting tourism, creating jobs and boosting state revenues, while adding an exciting new amenity to this premier resort, said Paul Keller, the Isle of Capri’s chief development officer.
Members of “No Casino Gettysburg” also were pleased with the news that the license was going to Nemacolin Woodlands as the group waged war on the casino proposal there.
Hardy said he hoped the “Lady Luck Nemacolin” casino at his resort would be up and running in five months.
That will depend on whether or not anyone challenges the gaming board’s decision.
The Gettysburg casino developers aren’t ruling that out.
Spokesman David LaTorre said “It’s way too early for us to discuss appeals,” but he immediately launched into the argument such an appeal would make.
“The Pennsylvania Gaming Law was about making money for Pennsylvania taxpayers,” said LaTorre, “and without question, Mason Dixon would have generated by far the most revenue for Pennsylvania homeowners.”
Nemacolin claims more than half of its revenue will come from the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., market, he said, but it is three times as far from that market as Gettysburg.
“The Mid-Atlantic gaming market is a convenience gaming market,” said LaTorre.
“People rarely travel farther than 60 or 70 miles to visit a casino.”
“The only way to get to Nemacolin from Baltimore is I-68,” he said. “That means gamers would have to bypass Rocky Gap’s casino — with more machines — just to drive another two hours up and back for the opportunity to go to Nemacolin for the day. Why would anyone do that as gasoline heads well over $4 a gallon?”
LaTorre also hinted that the gaming board was bamboozled by politics as much as it was blinded by “bling.”
“I think Joe Hardy finally got his casino license,” LaTorre said darkly.
Hardy has wanted the license for a very long time.
After the gaming law was passed in 2004, published reports cited state Rep. Bill DeWeese, D-Waynesburg, who was the House Democratic leader at the time, as saying Hardy had been “bugging him for the last decade to allow gambling at resorts in Pennsylvania.”
This time, Hardy lined up a legal team with incredibly close ties to the administration of then-Gov. Ed Rendell and the gaming board.
Rendell’s law firm Ballard Spahr represented Nemacolin, led by John Estey, Rendell’s former chief of staff and Adrian King, Rendell’s former deputy chief of staf, who also served as the governor’s liaison to the gaming board.
That’s just smart business, said Nemacolin’s government relations consultant, Richard Gmerek.
Gmerek said John Estey is “my best friend, a brilliant lawyer and was able to get Valley Forge a license. … That told me I should recommend my old friend to Nemacolin in this process.”
Disgruntled Gettysburg isn’t the only cloud on the horizon at Nemacolin. It also may face an appeal from the Meadows casino in North Strabane Township, Washington County.
The Meadows opposed Nemacolin’s application during the licensing process, saying it would take away customers from them.
Maggie Hardy Magerko countered that during questioning after Thursday’s decision, saying Nemacolin would draw an entirely different class of customer.
“I can see a bunch of women coming up on a Sunday to the spa, having brunch and playing some games,” she said.
No appeal is likely to be filed until after the gaming goard issues its reasoning in writing, which could take a month. Appeals may be filed within 30 days after that, and both the Meadows and Gettysburg have legal standing.
But Thursday morning, Joe Hardy and his daughter were all smiles, and they were driving back to a very happy staff in Fayette County.
Staff writer Terry Snead and the Associated Press contributed to this report.