A Western Pennsylvania resort is the first to submit its application for a single Category 3 gaming license since state lawmakers legalized table games last week and voted to reopen the application process for the final resort license.
Nemacolin Woodland Resort and Spa plans to house the casino in a former Woodlands World outdoor store on Route 40, if the license is approved.
But it has potential competition from at least three other parties, including the partnership of a Gettysburg businessman and a former state representative who want to convert a Cumberland Township, Adams County, hotel into a resort casino with 600 slots machines and 50 table games.
David LeVan and Joseph Lashinger have also announced their intention to apply for the license. But because lawmakers voted to give potential applicants a 90-day window, the application for Mason-Dixon Resort & Casino near Gettysburg will probably not be submitted until late March or early April. The clock started running a week ago.
There’s simply no need to rush, LeVan spokesman David La Torre said.
“Mason-Dixon won’t rush its application simply so we can say we were first,” La Torre said. “We’re going to be very thoughtful with our application and present a case that it’s in Pennsylvania’s best interest to prevent the placement of another casino in Western Pennsylvania.”
Nemacolin is about 40 miles south of Pittsburgh in an area that La Torre characterized as already “clustered” with casinos. He said LeVan and Lashinger intend to argue that Pennsylvania stands to gain much more by awarding a gaming license to their project, about five miles from downtown Gettysburg and two miles from the Maryland border.
La Torre said Nemacolin would further saturate the Western Pennsylvania casino market. The Rivers Casino and the Meadows Racetrack & Casino are about 25 miles apart near Pittsburgh, and two West Virginia casinos are within an hour of both, he said.
According to La Torre, the Rivers has performed below projections since opening in August.
Nemacolin was one of two original applicants for a Category 3 license in 2006 but dropped those plans because state gaming regulators wouldn’t relax rules restricting admission to customers and guests of the resort.
Since his first proposal in 2005-06, LeVan has argued that an Adams County casino could capitalize on the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., markets. That proposal failed to win the approval of the state Gaming Control Board, largely because of significant opposition to the site’s close proximity to the Gettysburg Battlefield.
LeVan and Lashinger also face competition from a hotel near Reading and another near the Poconos. Those applicants – the Reading Crowne Plaza Hotel in Wyomissing and the Fernwood Hotel & Resort in Bushkill – have already been deemed eligible by the Gaming Control Board, though the board has not yet deemed either suitable. Suitability is the last step in a process the board conducts on applications before it makes a licensing decision.
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