Somerville, Wynn Casino Battle Escalates

Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone has been a critic of the $1.7-billion Wynn Everett casino resort.

EVERETT, MA— Wynn Resorts , after deciding this week to put its $1.7-billion casino resort here on hold due to an environmental appeal filed by neighboring Somerville over traffic concerns, released a consultants report that charges that Wynn Everett will not be the sole contributor to added traffic in Somerville. Mayor Joseph Curtatone , a vocal critic of the project who filed the Article 91 appeal last month, shot back in a prepared statement, “Once again, the Wynn Casino PR machine has missed the point. It’s this simple: we are asking that the Wynn project undergo proper environmental review and then address the outcomes as is standard and appropriate for a project of this size.” Somerville in its appeal contends that the Wynn Everett project will add 20,130 extra vehicles per day onto local roadways. Las Vegas-based Wynn Resorts, owner of the proposed Wynn Everett casino resort, hired licensed professional traffic engineering firm Howard Stein Hudson to assess the impact of the three development projects that are now in the approval process in Somerville on area roads. Those projects are the 73-acre future phase of Assembly Square (first parcel proposed for 1.1 million square feet of office and labs; the project could at full build out feature more than 9,000 residences); the 12-acre, 2.2-million-square-foot mixed-use Union Square redevelopment and the 2 million-square-foot North Point project on five acres of land at the Somerville/East Cambridge border. Wynn Resorts says that the Howard Stein Hudson report estimates the three projects will add more than 62,700 vehicles per day to area roadways. “Why is development OK in Somerville and not OK on the other side of the river, in Everett?” asks Robert DeSalvio, president of Wynn Everett. “It doesn’t seem fair or equitable considering Wynn is paying more than $265 million in traffic mitigation without any public funds being used.” Wynn Resorts states it spent three years and completed 20 environmental and traffic plans that have been reviewed by three federal agencies, 12 state agencies, 14 municipalities and 20 local organizations. Mayor Curtatone counters in his statement released to Globest.com, “No one is denying that growth is necessary in the greater Boston region or that some traffic will come with that growth, but we can grow and develop responsibly and according to state law by conducting appropriate planning and review processes and mitigating traffic impacts. Or, in the case of the Wynn project, we can forego the usual diligent review, regardless of the effects on our communities and residents.” He adds that by Wynn Resorts own numbers, the “Wynn casino would generate more vehicle trips than entire mixed-use districts in such as Union Square and North Point that will bring high quality jobs, more sustainable tax revenue, and badly needed housing to these areas than a casino.” The mayor says that Cambridge and Somerville have both played a role in the approval process of the three cited projects. “We have greatly reduced vehicle trips with welcomed public transit and other traffic solutions, and we are doing our due diligence to ensure net positive impacts on our residents. The question, then, is not, ‘Why can’t Everett have development like other cities do?’ but rather ‘Why do the rules apply in Somerville and Cambridge, but not to the casino across the river?’” In January Wynn Resorts’ Steve Wynn and Boston Mayor Martin Walsh buried the hatchet on their legal and at times verbal battle and reached a settlement over impacts the casino might bring to the City of Boston. In response to Somerville’s environmental appeal, Wynn Resorts announced earlier this week it cancelled its planned April construction groundbreaking for the project as well as seven job fairs scheduled for Somerville, Everett, Boston, Malden, Medford, Chelsea and Cambridge. Wynn also immediately instituted a hiring freeze for all 4,000 union construction jobs and all operational positions at the resort the company had been beginning to fill.