The race to win the Western Massachusetts casino license has one less runner on the starting block after Ameristar Casinos announced its decision to drop its quest for the coveted license. In a press release, Ameristars decided that even though it believed it had a pretty good offer on the table for a casino in Western Massachusetts, it pretty much wasn’t worth all the hassle, not to mention the potential expenses that could be placed in more “attractive opportunities”.
“This was a difficult decision that will unfortunately result in us not being able to bring a world-class casino entertainment facility to western Massachusetts,” said Gordon Kanofsky, Ameristar’s chief executive officer.
Ameristar singled out the local selection process and all the project requirements, as well as the subsequent costs of pursing the license, in its decision to scrap its $910 million casino resort spa mega-project. While this development may be welcome news for the other casinos looking to acquire the license, Ameristar’s decision to drop out of the race puts into question on what they’re going to do with the 40-acre plot of land in Springfield, Massachusetts they acquired earlier this year, land that the company continues to believe as the “single largest commercially developable site in the City of Springfield”.
It was only a little over a month ago when Ameristar unveiled their plans for the grandiose casino project in Springfield, including a 150,000 square-foot casino that would have had 3,300 slot machines and 110 table games. On top of that, the company also planned to build a 500-room luxury hotel with 50 suites and number of other luxury amenities, including indoor and outdoor resort swimming pools, a spa, a fitness center, retail establishments, and a host of restaurants from some of the culinary world’s best minds.
Unfortunately, all that ended up being for naught. Ameristar saw a race that it would have a difficult time winning and instead of pushing forward and spending millions of dollars on something that was far from a sure thing, the company decided to cut bait and leave the others to fight over the golden bass – all while turning their attention to look for another lake to go do their fishing.
