Dec. 21–BALTIMORE — The owner of Maryland Live! unveiled details Friday of his proposal to build a hotel, convention center and intermodal transit hub next to the casino.
David Cordish, chairman of The Cordish Cos., said he is working to convince Anne Arundel County to provide financial support for the project, and hopes to open the complex before competing casinos in Baltimore and near Washington, D.C., challenge his regional dominance in gaming.
Cordish shared his preliminary plan with editors and reporters from The Capital and the Maryland Gazette at his offices overlooking the Inner Harbor.
He spoke the same day the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency awarded MGM Resorts International the state’s sixth and final casino license for National Harbor in Prince George’s County. (See story, Page A4.)
Cordish’s Baltimore office is not far from the $400 million Horseshoe Casino, expected to open in 2014.
Maryland Live! opened well ahead of its new rivals in June 2012. On a typical Saturday it attracts 25,000 customers, and Cordish said the amount of business has been “staggering.”
Annual betting has hit $8 billion, with total revenues for the state, the county and The Cordish Cos. in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
“We are in a monopoly situation,” Cordish said. “That honeymoon is about to end.”
The new projects, which Cordish said could be completed about a year after approval from the county, call for a 70,000-square-foot convention center with a 300-room, eight-story hotel at the casino. Construction costs would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
A short distance away, a $20 million intermodal transit hub would have 1,500 parking spaces, ride-sharing programs and bus routes connecting with Fort George G. Meade, BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport and nearby MARC and Amtrak stations.
The convention center, Cordish said, would bring 1,000 construction jobs to the area and up to 800 permanent jobs.
Councilman Daryl Jones, D-Severn, who represents the area around Maryland Live!, said he fully supports the project.
Jones said that with the approval of the MGM National Harbor project, it is essential for Anne Arundel County’s plans to get off the ground. The casino just outside Washington is legally barred from opening sooner than July 2016.
“We have got to maintain our competitive edge,” Jones said. “Time is of the essence. We have got to start moving.”
Cordish said he has begun discussions with the administration of County Executive Laura Neuman, and characterized the reaction as “intrigued.”
Recently, Neuman said she likes the convention center and hotel concept and is working to “help find the resources to put the project together.”
The resources
To fund the intermodal hub, Cordish is asking the county to dedicate up to $3 million a year for 10 years out of local impact funds generated by Maryland Live! revenues.
In the most recent fiscal year, those funds totaled $20 million and paid for expanded police and fire service, a new health clinic and community center, and other projects.
Under state law, the money must be spent within three miles of the casino.
A local development council recommends priorities to the county executive. The executive includes the funds in her annual budget, which is approved by the County Council.
Under Cordish’s proposal, funding for the convention center and hotel would come from tax increment financing, or TIF.
The county would issue bonds for the project, which Cordish would sell to investors. The bonds would be repaid from tax revenues generated by the casino and convention center.
The county would not be required to repay bond holders if the project were to fail, and would collect the taxes once the bonds were paid off. TIF proposals are developed by the administration, then submitted as legislation to the council, whose approval is needed.
The convention center would serve a need in Anne Arundel for an indoor space large enough to hold conventions, trade shows and other gatherings — particularly high school graduations.
It also would likely spawn additional development in the Hanover area around the casino and the next-door Arundel Mills mall.
Under the project, the county could use the convention center at no cost under a public-private agreement.
“Anytime the county wants it, they get it for free,” Cordish said. “Everyone would be well-served.”
Graduations
Jones said the county needs to provide space close to home for graduation ceremonies. Most of the county’s 12 public high schools pay thousands of dollars every year to hold graduation ceremonies at facilities in Towson or Upper Marlboro.
“Whatever I could do to try to push forward on our project, I will do,” Jones said.
The project would also move part of the ring road that circles Maryland Live! and the mall.
Cordish said the plan calls for shifting the road away from the casino, adding the hotel and convention center inside it, and converting a stormwater retention pond into a man-made lake.
Cordish owns high-profile casinos, entertainment complexes and shopping centers across the country. The company was started by his grandfather in 1910, and Cordish’s three sons work for it as vice presidents.
Early reaction to the project is split.
Former Board of Education President Andrew Pruski is making support for the project part of his campaign for a County Council seat in District 4.
Tonja McCoy of Hanover, a House of Delegates candidate in the district that surrounds the casino, said she supports a convention center but that the proposed development is too much for the surrounding area to absorb.
“Hanover shouldn’t be the only option or choice to be considered for a convention center,” McCoy said.
