District 8 City Councilor Calvin Brown wants Interim City Manager Ned Keefe to meet with representatives from the Massachusetts Gaming Commission about the planned expansion of the Encore Resort and Casino in Everett.
“Encore has been buying up a lot of property around the casino and they are potentially going to do a significant expansion,” said Brown. “We’ve got a mediation agreement with them when they first opened up under the conditions we had then.”
Brown said he would like to see more details from the state about the proposed Encore expansion and specifically, how it will impact traffic in Chelsea.
“I believe here in Chelsea that if you start making more activities and facilities over there, you are going to have more traffic that would have an impact here in the city of Chelsea,” said Brown. “If we are going to have a significant impact from this work that they are doing, then we need to have them back at the table and maybe talk about some additional costs for the impact that it will have on our community from the traffic.”
In February, state gaming regulators interpreted Everett’s 2013 casino referendum to authorize gaming not just on the current casino site, but on land across from the casino, as well.
Encore is proposing to develop on about 13 acres of parking lots across Broadway from the current hotel-casino complex and turn it into a new development that will include two hotels with ballrooms and a combined 800 guest rooms, multiple restaurants, a 200-seat comedy club, a roof deck club, a 980-seat theater, an indoor nightclub, a poker room, and a WynnBet Sportsbook.
In addition, in April, Encore parent company Wynn Development purchased the Mike’s Roast Beef property on Broadway for a reported $5.5 million.