Frustrated by his stalemated casino project, Rosemont Mayor Donald E. Stephens said Wednesday that he might try to put a college, nightclub or movie theater on land near the proposed site, rather than waiting for gambling to be approved.
“I’m just sick of it. … There are other things in this world besides a casino,” Stephens said after Wednesday’s Village Board meeting. “We’d love to see [casino investors] resolve this thing, but I really don’t know how they could resolve it now.”
Stephens’ comments were his bleakest assessment of an Emerald Casino plan that has become mired in troubles.
Two weeks ago, federal authorities subpoenaed the Illinois Gaming Board for all records related to the casino, a development that came as the regulators weigh a proposal to allow the casino license-holders to be bought out by Las Vegas-based MGM Mirage Inc.
All gubernatorial candidates have come out against the buyout as a bad deal for the state that would enrich alleged wrongdoers.
The new projects Stephens mentioned Wednesday would not be built on casino property or prevent a casino from someday being built there, Village Attorney Peter Rosenthal said.
“It just means we’re not going to let the casino problem stop us from moving forward with our development plans for the area,” Rosenthal said. “Whatever happens to this casino, we have to move on.”
The casino was supposed to be part of a new Rosemont entertainment district, Rosenthal said. But most of the area has been untouched while a decision was awaited on the casino.
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Under court order, the village cannot build anything further on the casino property, Stephens said. “But we do own the rest of this land and we are entitled to use it,” he said.
Stephens said he talked recently to officials at a major college about building a campus, possibly a graduate school, on land adjacent to the site. He declined to name the college.
The village also would be interested in a nightclub and has been negotiating with a firm to construct a multi-screen movie theater, Stephens said, a plan in the works since 1999.
Also, Rosemont has almost finished a $43 million parking garage that was intended for gamblers but may have to be filled by nightclub and movie patrons, he said.
For years, Stephens advocated putting a casino in Rosemont, even playing a pivotal role in lining up votes for the 1999 gambling law that made it possible. The law lifted a ban on casinos in Cook County and steered exclusive rights to build and own the casino to a politically connected group of investors.
But since the law was passed, Stephens has grown increasingly frustrated with the Gaming Board, first for taking too long to investigate the Emerald Casino’s investors and then for rejecting them last year–a rejection that is under administrative appeal.
The delay has been caused, in part, by questions about close associates of the mayor.
It was Stephens who introduced Sherri Boscarino to a top Emerald Casino official at a fundraiser Stephens held for Gov. George Ryan. She later obtained a 1 percent stake in the casino through a family trust.
The arrangement raised a red flag at the Gaming Board, which last year identified her husband, Nick S. Boscarino, as a “known associate of organized crime.”
Boscarino, a former business partner of Stephens’, was recently indicted on federal charges involving insurance fraud. Weeks before the indictment, Stephens announced that he was severing ties with Boscarino.
Under Stephens, Rosemont negotiated lucrative contracts with Emerald Casino Inc. unlike any other Illinois municipality.
Rosemont owns the land where the casino was to go and planned to lease it to the casino for $1.5 million a year. The lease specifies which construction firm must build the casino. When and if it opens, the casino was to pay $4 million a year for new Rosemont economic development and tourism funds, on top of an estimated $3 million a year in local gambling taxes.
The casino also agreed to reimburse the village for the parking garage, which, under the contract, was to include an antique car museum.