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Pirates, Steelers upset with casino location

By Alan Robinson Ap Sports Writer 4 min read

PITTSBURGH – The Pittsburgh Steelers and Pirates were surprised and troubled by a state gaming panel’s decision Wednesday that allows a gambling casino to be built close to their stadiums, with each team wondering how the slots parlor will affect them on game days. The Steelers, long opposed to sharing their North Side neighborhood with a $450 million glass-and-steel casino, issued a terse statement that didn’t disguise their anger that Detroit developer Don Barden will build the casino only a block away from Heinz Field.

Barden’s Majestic Star casino was chosen over two other applicants for one Pittsburgh gambling license – Isle of Capri, which promised to build a $290 downtown arena in addition to its slots parlor, and Harrah’s, which would have been built on the city’s bustling but crowded South Side.

“We are extremely disappointed in the decision of the Gaming Commission to award the casino license on the North Shore,” Steelers president Art Rooney II said. “It seemed it was a process that was designed to give little weight to local interests and the result is indicative of that. We will have to consider all of our options in determining how to respond to this decision.”

The Pirates’ tone was more conciliatory than that of the Steelers, perhaps because their PNC Park is four or five blocks away from the planned casino.

That doesn’t mean that Pirates chairman Kevin McClatchy isn’t worried about large crowds of baseball and gambling fans converging simultaneously into a congested area that keeps losing parking spots to development projects.

“What I worry about is if it will cause congestion,” McClatchy said. “We do well on weekends, with 30,000 fans over here, and if you add 4,000 cars to the mix, it’s a challenge. Will our fans have the ability to get to the ballpark quickly, or will it create congestion that hurts everybody?”

However, traffic – or the lack of it – is one reason the Barden proposal succeeded.

Two large parking garages have been built on the North Side since PNC Park and Heinz Field opened in 2001, and another may be built along with the casino. Except on game days, a North Side casino is expected to cause far fewer traffic problems than would the casinos proposed in the Hill District (Isle of Capri) or South Side (Harrah’s).

Also, the Pirates have been successful in convincing many fans that they should park downtown, where there are ample parking spots, and then walk across the Roberto Clemente Bridge to PNC Park.

McClatchy, a sports fan who regularly attends games year-round, said he is disappointed that the decision threatens the Penguins’ future in Pittsburgh. Penguins owner Mario Lemieux, whose group has sought a new arena since acquiring the team in 1999, is free to relocate the franchise once its Mellon Arena lease expires in June.

“Mario has worked very hard in this community to ensure that the Penguins are successful, and he’s probably gone further than he should have,” McClatchy said.

“The (Isle of Capri) plan would have ensured the Penguins’ security for 30 or 40 years. But, to the folks who decided this, maybe it wasn’t that big a priority.”

McClatchy also wonders whether the rapid North Side development in recent years will be affected by the casino. Alcoa, Del Monte Foods and Equitable Resources have built new corporate headquarters in an area that, except for the now-demolished Three Rivers Stadium, was largely deserted and in deterioration for decades.

Still, McClatchy said, “We have to try to make it work, and we’ll work with them. But we need to learn a lot more about what this means.”

The Pirates’ principal owners, newspaper publisher G. Ogden Nutting and his family from Wheeling, W.Va., also sought a slots parlor for their Seven Springs ski resort about an hour away from Pittsburgh. They pulled their application because of major league baseball rules that bar owners from being associated with gambling, only to learn that another parlor will be constructed near the Pirates’ ballpark.

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