Casino Tide Turning in Fishtown?
SugarHouse just signed a juicy community benefits agreement with neighborhood groups.
My column today about the community benefits agreement signed by SugarHouse casino focused on an intriguing point made by Maggie O'Brien, president of Fishtown Action (FACT), a pro-casino advocacy group.
FACT enthusiastically supports SugarHouse, which in December 2006 was granted a license by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board to operate a slots parlor on the N. Delaware Ave. site of the old Jack Frost sugar refinery.
As reported by PhillyClout on Nov. 20th, SugarHouse just signed a juicy community benefits agreement with FACT and the New Kensington CDC, even though it's not certain that SugarHouse will rise on the site at all, given how opposition to the proposed locales of both Sugar house and Foxwoods (the other casino granted a license to operate here) have held up construction.
Maggie contends that, had SugarHouse been up and running by now (or close to it), as was originally intended, the CBA might be helping the neighborhood fund its soon-to-close library, pool and fire services.
What's startling to me is how FACT's membership has grown since I wrote about the group's start-up.
FACT's members now number 600 - which is three times the size it was when I wrote a follow-up column about the group - and many, many times the size of the Fishtown Neighbors association, which opposes SugarHouse.
Makes me wonder how much bigger FACT might balloon, given that the country is now, officially, in recession.
Might more Fishtowners start saying "yes" to Sugarhouse, which remains eager to build in Fishtown, hire locals for its jobs and fund a Special Servcies disitrct there with up to $1.5 million per year?
If the group gets much bigger, might it become a political force to be recokned with?