Aurora approves plans for new $360 million Hollywood Casino

The Aurora City Council Tuesday night approved plans for the new $360 million Hollywood Casino Aurora.

Aldermen voted 10-1, in two separate votes, to approve both a rezoning and final plans to pave the way for the casino to move from downtown to an almost 19-acre site along Farnsworth Avenue, south of Bilter Road, east of Church Road and just north of the interchange with Interstate 88.

The move, which was seen by both city and casino officials as necessary to the survival of the casino, comes in the 30th year since the casino first opened in downtown Aurora.

The development will include a casino with about 900 slot machines and 50 live table games – including a baccarat room and a poker room – a Barstool Sportsbook, a 220-room hotel, a full-service spa, several bars and restaurants, about a 10,000-square-foot event center, and an open, outside entertainment area.

The location will feature 1,600 parking spaces, both at street level and in a parking garage, with the potential of adding another 500 spaces if needed, casino officials have said.

There will be a main entrance off Farnsworth, and a second entrance along Bilter Road. The alternate entrance can be used by people going to some of the entertainment spaces, without going through the gaming area or hotel.

Officials have estimated that when construction begins later this year, it will bring nearly 1,000 construction jobs. Casino officials have said their permanent staff will double from its current 350 employees at the downtown Aurora site to about 700.

In approving the plans, Ald. Michael Saville, 6th Ward, put the situation in historic perspective, pointing out the idea to relocate the casino goes back three city administrations, when Tom Weisner was mayor. That was when casino attendance started to fall, and revenue to the city began to decrease.

During Mayor Richard Irvin’s administration, the city successfully lobbied the General Assembly to pass a bill allowing casinos to move from spots along rivers where they were originally located. Aurora then lobbied Penn Entertainment, Hollywood’s parent company, to move off the Fox River to the Farnsworth location.

“The original idea to move the casino did not come from the casino, it came from the city of Aurora,” Saville said. “It was no small feat, to compile the properties. We’re trying to advance the economic course of our citizenry.”

That was the belief of members of the building trades, who showed up at this week’s City Council meeting to support the new casino project.

“This project is not a financial obligation,” said Brian Dahl, president of the Fox Valley Building Trades. “The economic impact makes the new casino project a no-brainer to support.”

That was not the opinion of the lone City Council member to vote against the plans, Ald. John Laesch, at large, a longtime opponent of the casino project.

Laesch was an opponent before he was an alderman, not as much to the project itself or the relocation, but to the city’s part in incentivizing the project.

The city and Penn Entertainment have a redevelopment agreement that has the city giving the land and donating $50 million to the casino, which it will pay back. The city would plan to pass $58 million in general obligation bonds for that money.

The payback would be done through a tax increment financing district on the casino property which would be tied to the bond payments. City officials have estimated that the land will generate about $5.5 million in property taxes a year, which would make the bond payments.

If the TIF district does not generate enough to make the bond payments, Penn Entertainment would make up the difference, according to the agreement.

Laesch has opposed both the city’s helping Penn Entertainment, which he said is a multi-billion-dollar company, and using a TIF district.

“This is a multi-billion-dollar company that can afford it,” he said. “The TIF money is being siphoned away from other taxing bodies.”

Ald. Carl Franco, 5th Ward, pointed out that in a TIF district, the base valuation of the property is frozen at the time the TIF district is established, meaning all taxing bodies will continue to receive the tax money they have received in the past. The other taxing bodies will not receive the increased tax money immediately – that money is put into a special fund called the increment to be used on the development – but it will receive the new money eventually, after the TIF district expires.

“Nobody’s losing money,” he said.

Irvin pointed out that it is the developer, through the development, that is creating the new wealth in the TIF district.

“We’re not subsidizing the casino or any other business,” Irvin said. “The money doesn’t exist unless the developer does something.”

In a rebuttal on social media, Laesch indicated that Penn Entertainment is gaining wealth by “dodging paying their taxes, and underpaying their employees.”

But a property owner in a TIF district pays its full tax bill, it’s just that some of the money goes into the increment, and not to other taxing bodies.

Ald. Patty Smith, 8th Ward, pointed out that money from the casino through the years has accounted for millions of dollars put into funds for City Council members to spend in their wards, and into things such as the Quality of Life grant programs.

Last year, the city used the Quality of Life grants to provide about $1 million to benefit youth, seniors, the food pantries, the homeless and other not-for-profits, officials said.

“I feel like we glossed over what the Quality of Life program does,” she said.

Laesch responded that “we still have homelessness, a shortage of mental health providers.”

He also indicated the city might have missed other opportunities for development if it had marketed the property to other developers. He pointed to the tech and professional companies that have located along Interstate 88 in Lisle and Naperville.

Alex Alexandrou, chief management officer for the city, said the city was transparent from the start that it was buying the two hotels and the other properties involved to assemble land for the casino.

“We did not market it to anyone else,” he said. “We simply looked at how to keep the casinos here. Do we keep our casino here, or do we lose it? We’re very confident in our casino projections.”

slord@tribpub.com