The Wynn Boston Harbor, which had been price-tagged at $2.1 billion, will now cost an additional $300 million, the developer reported to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission recently.
The price reflects the addition of a 90-table poker room, among other additional amenities. Besides a casino, the resort will have a hotel, a waterfront boardwalk, convention space, a space, retail shopping and dining. When they spoke to the commission, Wynn officials said they wanted to scale back retail space to make more room for convention space and additional ballrooms. The retail space will fall 80 percent, to about 9,000 sq. ft. from nearly 53,000 sq. ft. Ten stores have been cut from the initial retail plan.
The casino is looking at a mid-2019 opening, but this is still tentative due to the increased costs. Wynn is required to open by June 2020. If it were to fail to meet that deadline the commission could suspend or revoke its gaming license.
Meanwhile, the mayor of Medford, Massachusetts is worried that the extra traffic generated by the Wynn Boston Harbor in neighboring Everett will cause problems in her city, particularly in a part of town called Wellington Circle.
Mayor Muccini Burke told Boston Herald Radio’s “Herald Drive” show, “We are really nervous about it. It’s going to impact our Wellington area, which is where I grew up.”
Burke’s predecessor signed a casino impact agreement with Wynn, but Burke isn’t sure that the payments will be enough. She said, “We do have some payments coming in, but not until the doors open. They did front-load maybe $400,000 dollars and then it’s about $1 million dollars a year once we open our doors, but we know the impact regardless of any traffic studies going on out there, we know that Wellington Circle is going to be the impact area coming off I-93 from the north.”
