Looking for hope from a Midtown casino

So… casinos again.

Every few years, somebody wants to build a casino here. Back
around 2004, the location of interest was the Sibley Building downtown. More
recently, it was Medley Centre. Then Henrietta.Now, downtown Rochester again.

And understandably, the possibility offered by developer
Robert Morgan has the mayor’s interest. Morgan has suggested a casino for
Parcel 5 on the Midtown property. That’s the land that fronts on Main Street,
where McCurdy’s used to be.

Parcel 5 is a key downtown site – key for a developer, and
key for the future of the center city. The right development could spur others
and boost what’s already underway. The wrong development….

The mayor is particularly interested because Morgan’s plan
would include a performing arts center, which has been on a lot of people’s
wish list for years. The casino would be on the first two floors, and the
performing arts center would sit on top of it. The Seneca Nation would own the complex,
and we’d get a performing arts center, free.

Presumably, the Rochester Broadway Theatre League would handle
the operations, booking Broadway musicals and other big acts that they now put
on in the Auditorium Theatre. And RBTL has always insisted that with a new
theater, more and bigger shows could be brought in.

I continue to worry about the fate of the Auditorium Theatre
if RBTL moves those shows out. Its leaders say they would continue to book
events into the Aud, but I wonder if there would be
enough of them to maintain that facility.

There’s little question, though, that a performing arts
center would be a strong addition to downtown. And the people who go to those
events could also spend money in nearby restaurants and bars. The center would
further enliven downtown, which means that for many people, it would be one
more reason to live downtown.

But a casino? I’m not outright
opposed; I want to learn more. But I’m skeptical. Mayor Warren wants to find
ways to increase employment opportunities in Rochester, and casinos do have a
track record of providing jobs that pay decent wages.

But casinos have plenty of negatives. Most often cited are
the societal costs of gambling. But there are others. Casinos like to keep
their customers close, and their complexes often contain restaurants, which not
only discourage their own patrons from leaving but can also attract patrons
from nearby restaurants and bars. Casinos may even put those competitors out of
business, offsetting the job growth their own operation creates.

A casino could bring more people downtown, then, but it
might be the only winner.

And is a casino the best use for that important piece of
property? Clearly, the mayor will want to be sure that it won’t have a negative
impact on its neighbors – including the planned housing and commercial
development in the Sibley Building across the street and the Center for Urban
Entrepreneurship, which formally opened last week just to the Sibley Building’s
east.

Casinos also face a new problem: saturation. The Northeast
has simply built too many casinos. Atlantic City casinos’ financial problems –
caused by excess competition in the region – have been widely reported, but Upstate
New York is also becoming saturated. And we’re continuing to build.

When Governor Cuomo launched his campaign to encourage
casino development in New York State, he billed it as an economic development
tool. I was skeptical then; I’m more skeptical now. Seems to
me that jobs with a future – and job training for the good jobs that are going
unfilled now – are a better tool.

As for Rochester: I applaud the mayor’s search for new ways
to increase employment opportunities, particularly for Rochester’s poor. But I
hope none of us get carried away with the myth that casinos can be our economic
salvation. That thinking carries as much risk as the tables in a casino.

This article appears in May 4-10, 2016.