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MGM Files Final Springfield Casino Plan

MGM's new design for the Springfield casino, depicted in this artist's drawing, omits a 25-story hotel that was a centerpiece of the project since 2013.
MGMSpringfield
MGM's new design for the Springfield casino, depicted in this artist's drawing, omits a 25-story hotel that was a centerpiece of the project since 2013.
MGM's new design for the Springfield casino, depicted in this artist's drawing, omits a 25-story hotel that was a centerpiece of the project since 2013.
Credit MGMSpringfield

Final plans have been filed for the MGM Springfield casino project.

The filing of the final complete site plan for the project, announced by city officials Monday, triggers a 30-day review and the requirement the City Council hold a public hearing within 45-days.

At a public presentation on the casino project in Springfield last week, the city’s deputy director of  planning, Phil Dromey said his department is anxious to complete the regulatory reviews.

" It is time really to get to the nuts and bolts of this," he said.

The project, which MGM says is now budgeted at $950 million, has undergone several recent controversial design changes.  MGM wants to scrap a 25-story hotel tower in favor of a six-story building, and scale back other parts of the casino complex by roughly 10 percent.

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission awarded MGM a license for the Springfield project in June 2014.  A ceremonial groundbreaking took place in March.

Very little construction work has happened on the 14-acre downtown site.

The gaming commission in July approved MGM's request to delay the scheduled opening of the casino by one year until Sept. 2018 because of the reconstruction of Interstate 91.

Copyright 2015 WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Paul Tuthill is WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief. He’s been covering news, everything from politics and government corruption to natural disasters and the arts, in western Massachusetts since 2007. Before joining WAMC, Paul was a reporter and anchor at WRKO in Boston. He was news director for more than a decade at WTAG in Worcester. Paul has won more than two dozen Associated Press Broadcast Awards. He won an Edward R. Murrow award for reporting on veterans’ healthcare for WAMC in 2011. Born and raised in western New York, Paul did his first radio reporting while he was a student at the University of Rochester.

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