Area investor group is seeking slots license
It wants to put 500 machines at the Valley Forge Convention Center. Ira Lubert is the top stakeholder.
An investor group said yesterday that it would seek a state license to put 500 slot machines in the Valley Forge Convention Center.
The top stakeholder of the group, which is calling itself Valley Forge Convention Center Partners L.P., is the convention center's majority owner, Ira Lubert. He is joined in the venture by a group of Philadelphia businessmen.
The project leader, Joseph Sweeney, a real estate investor from Harrisburg, said yesterday that the slots facility would produce an estimated $2.8 million of added annual revenue for Montgomery County and Upper Merion Township. Sweeney said the group would submit its formal application to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board on June 29.
It will seek one of two available resort slots licenses.
Lubert holds vast real estate holdings throughout the region, mostly through LLR Partners, which is based in the Cira Centre in West Philadelphia, and through his partnership with Dean Adler, called Lubert-Adler Partners L.P. Lubert and Adler have participated in acquisition transactions valued in the billions of dollars - mostly in the Philadelphia region and many of them in Center City.
Lubert, members of his family, and some additional investors who currently have ownership in the convention center would own 75 percent of the proposed slots facility, Sweeney said.
The rest will be owned by Sweeney; Michael Forman, a principal in FB Capital L.L.C., an equity firm in Philadelphia; and Michael Heller, a partner in the Center City law firm Cozen O'Connor.
Under the state's 2004 gambling law, a resort or convention center must have at least 275 hotel rooms and at least three additional amenities, such as convention or meeting space, spas, pools, a golf course, restaurants and lounges, or similar types of ancillary activities to qualify for a slots license.
Access to the gambling floor would be restricted to patrons of the hotel, or its facilities. To enter the slots premises, a patron would have to spend at least $10 on goods and services at the convention center.
The 850,000-square-foot convention center complex recently underwent a renovation that made it an attractive site for his group's project, Sweeney said.
He said the investor group plans to create an entertainment area, and will improve access areas, lobbies, restaurants, hotel rooms and office space.
"Our plan is to make this a premium venue that will further enhance the overall competitiveness of the Valley Forge area," Sweeney said.
Pennsylvania Gaming Board spokesman Doug Harbach said two other resorts have expressed interest in the licenses. Representatives from Split Rock Resort and Fernwood Hotel & Resort, both in the Poconos, appeared before the board in March to discuss their intention to apply. But Harbach said the board had not received an application from either.
He said the board would hold a public hearing in Harrisburg and the proposed host municipalities before granting a license.
Ronald Wagenman, manager of the 27,000-resident township, said he received an economic-impact report from Sweeney's team yesterday outlining the jobs and tax revenues.
"The revenues are a positive thing," Wagenman said. "We have to see what the reaction of the community is, and we'll have to review the official application."