Bart Blatstein owns the State Office Building and the Inquirer Building on North Broad, and sees it as the prime spot for a massive venue, a private venture that would rival if not surpass the nearby Pennsylvania Convention Center. That's right, a casino can and should be much more than a casino.
Knee jerk NIMBYism is already calling for the head of anyone supporting this. Why? "We don't need another casino!" They're absolutely right. We don't. These chronic complainers have pointed out that we already have SugarHouse and several casinos in the suburbs. Their point is entirely valid. Our existing casinos struggle, what's the point of building another?
Here's the point: convention space, theaters, night clubs, restaurants, hotels, and a boatload of other amenities that come with successful casinos. These underhanded dicks have conveniently left all of that out, and here's how they kill all of those resources:
Convince everyone that Mr. Burns will be sitting in the clock tower skinning puppies while thousands of expectant mother's cash in their unborn child's college funds below. "Please, won't somebody think of the children?!"
The very reason Philadelphia allowed table games was to entice investors into building something more than a slot barn. SugarHouse tried to offer that, but a group of (vaguely) neighboring ass holes forced the lowest common denominator, then blamed it on the developer!
Let's not NIMBY this plan down to a crappy little slot barn, or worse, another parcel of vacant buildings.