Experts mull casino problems

The experts gathered yesterday, not to kill riverfront casinos but to make them better.

Brought together by PennPraxis at the request of Mayor Nutter, the architects and traffic engineers saw both problems and opportunities in the designs for the two casinos proposed for the banks of the Delaware River.

PennPraxis director Harris Steinberg started the discussion, saying that the group would not be "taking sides" on whether the casinos were good developments.

"This is not a kill-casino project," Steinberg said. "This is not a pro-casino project."

PennPraxis prepared a list of standards for the casinos to fit within the group's riverfront-redevelopment plans. The "casino vision matrix" included more than 80 questions. When the casinos came up short, the problems were graded as "can be fixed" and "can't be fixed."

The only "can't be fixed" problems involved parking - whether the sites were "auto-dominated" with visible lots and multistory garages blocking the view and access to the riverfront.

That debate centered on moving the parking to other locations and using transportation to bring customers to the casinos versus keeping the garages on-site but changing design.

Architectural designer Tim Magill considered the upside of on-site parking and wondered if the casino developers would allow free parking for non-customers. He suggested that developers provide direct access to the riverfront from the garages for people who don't want to walk through the casinos.

Parking could help drive redevelopment of the neighboring riverfront, Magill said.

"It's a catalyst, really," he added. "To me, rather than fighting the parking, let's mitigate it."

The casinos - Foxwoods in South Philly and SugarHouse in Fishtown - declined to participate in yesterday's discussion because they considered the conclusions preordained. The developers said that they would review the PennPraxis results before commenting on the suggestions.

SugarHouse noted that it already plans public access to the riverfront. Foxwoods said that it has spent three years preparing plans and is eager to move forward. Traffic was also a concern, especially near the Foxwoods site, where volume is already heavy at times from nearby "big box" stores like Ikea, Lowe's, Best Buy, Home Depot and Wal-Mart.

Traffic engineer Walter Kulash noted that the casinos will draw about the same volume as a "run of the mill" shopping center but that the issue of casino developments near neighborhoods had inflamed concerns.

Rina Cutler, Nutter's deputy mayor for transportation and public utilities, agreed. "Left to itself," she said, "if these were not casino uses, there would be some talk about traffic, but it would not cause the level of consternation that it is now causing." Still, the area has problems.

"I think the system already needs to fix a lot of our past mistakes," said Cutler. "The whole corridor has been badly planned. We have the only waterfront Wal-Mart in America."

The PennPraxis project wraps up this morning. The group hopes to present its findings to Nutter by the end of next week. *