Massachusetts gaming panel scores two casino proposals

Here’s how the scores break down:

Building and site design: Wynn: Sufficient – Mohegan Sun: Sufficient/ very good

Finance Mohegan Sun: Sufficient - Wynn: Very good/ outstanding

Mitigation Mohegan Sun: Sufficient/very good - Wynn: Insufficient/sufficient

Economic development:  Mohegan Sun: Sufficient/ Very good - Wynn: very good

General Overview Mohegan Sun: Scored lower in five out of eight subcategories - Wynn: Scored higher in five out of eight subcategories.

Mohegan Sun and Wynn Resorts have pushed back at critiques of their casino plans by state gaming commissioners, with Mohegan insisting its plan is on sounder financial footing than a gaming panel analysis concluded and Wynn saying it has Sullivan Square traffic impacts under control.

The applicants for the lone Boston-area casino license, who are proposing US$ 1 billion-plus casinos in Everett and Revere, submitted letters to the commission today countering several conclusions commissioners drew in their review of the plans’ finances, mitigation, and designs.

The commission weighed the feedback yesterday in crafting a final set of license conditions they will ask each applicant to agree to if it is awarded the license, a decision that could come as early as Friday.

Most of the push back came from Mohegan in response to Commissioner Enrique Zuniga’s review of its plan to finance 60 percent of its project with money from private equity firm Brigade Capital. Zuniga concluded Mohegan needs to obtain US$ 100 million more in equity to have sufficient funds to aggressively proceed with construction, saying it will only have US$ 45 million to work with out of the box compared to Wynn’s US$ 478 million.

“(Mohegan Sun Massachusetts’) application includes a binding financing commitment letter and two highly confident letters from some of the most respected financial institutions that participate actively in the financing of the gaming market sector,” Mohegan wrote in its letter. “(T)he notion that MSM only has US$ 45 million available to initiate development is not true. We will have several months to get the financing in place and will have the US$ 732 million in financing quickly, which we can then deploy.”

Despite the response, Zuniga determined his working group made no material errors in deeming Wynn’s financing plan superior and less risky than Mohegan’s.

Wynn disputed that its traffic plan lacked solutions for intersections in Charlestown that would be impacted by the casino, saying its plan won’t add any cars to the Rutherford Avenue or Main Street approaches to Sullivan Square. “The proposed improvements at the intersection of Cambridge Street/Maffa Way/Alford Street will mitigate the impacts of Wynn Everett’s traffic,” the company said.

Commissioner James McHugh said a detailed traffic solution will have to be reached collaboratively with the City of Boston, which has had chilly relations with Wynn and cut a mitigation deal with Mohegan, giving them the edge in that category.