Racing Commission, Penn National to Discuss Plans
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – State Sen. Joe Schiavoni, D-33 Boardman, wants representatives of Penn National Gaming Inc. and the Ohio State Racing Commission to get together prior to a meeting scheduled for April 24 to discuss the debate over Penn National's proposed racinos in Austintown and Dayton. Those projects could be "in jeopardy" if the commission denies its plans, a Penn National official acknowledged in a letter to the commission's chairman.
At the conclusion of this morning's meeting of the racing commission in Columbus, chairman Robert K. Schmitz agreed to Penn National's request for commission members to meet with Penn National "sooner rather than later if we can come up with a plan that works," said Penn National spokesman Bob Tenenbaum.
The racing commission is considering Penn National's request to relocate its thoroughbred license from its Beulah Park track outside Columbus to the Austintown site where it proposed to build the proposed Hollywood Slots at Mahoning Valley Race Course. That transfer, as well as a separate transfer to a proposed Dayton track, is on hold pending the commission's approval of seating and stall plans for the proposed $125 million tracks, which will also have facilities for video lottery terminals.
The commission has called for additional enclosed seating at both tracks, which Penn National said could not be accommodated in the current design. New designs would delay the projects by perhaps six months, company officials said. Denial of the two track plans "puts in jeopardy each of the projects and the associated and very real benefits" they would provide, Penn National's Steven Snyder, senior vice president – corporate development, wrote in a letter to Schmitz.
At the request of Schiavoni for a firm date and time, Schmitz set the 10 a.m. April 24 meeting. "So my new focus has shifted from that meeting to getting a working meeting/study meeting any day between now and then," he said. Such a meeting – to include Penn National and racing commission representatives – would be to work out details prior to the meeting already scheduled for next week.
Penn National, began site work last year at the Austintown and Dayton locations and had been prepared to let bids this month for foundation and structural steel work earlier this month, pending approval of the license transfers. About $19 million in work has been performed at the two track sites, where work has been halted for the past few weeks.
Though not specific about what kind of delay the project, which had been slated for a 2nd-quarter 2014 opening, could face, Penn National officials testified that they could be impacted by winter weather if a delay was too lengthy, Tenenbaum said. If Penn National could get approval even by the next regularly scheduled commission meeting May 16, "we wouldn't be too far off schedule," he said.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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