Foxwoods and Sugarhouse to build in Philly

South Philadelphia and the Fishtown area to the north will play host to the city's two slots casinos.

Foxwoods Casino on Columbus Boulevard, and SugarHouse Casino near Fishtown and Northern Liberties, were approved for slots licenses this morning by the Pennsylvania Gaming Board.

The board's decisions, in two separate votes, are considered likely to be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

The ballots were cast just before 11:30 a.m. in a packed conference hall. The audience included Mayor Street.

Foxwoods Casino Philadelphia, a $560 million project in South Philadelphia, will be built on a 30-acre parcel off Columbus Boulevard, north of Home Depot and Target.

Developers say that by November 2008, they will have installed 3,000 slot machines, restaurants, shops, and a 2,000-seat entertainment complex. Investors include Quincy Jones, Comcast-Spectacor chairman Ed Snider, and 76ers president Billy King.

Sugarhouse Casino is a $550 million project on 22.6 acres on North Delaware Avenue at Shackamaxon Street. Plans call for 3,000 slot machines, restaurants, a plaza, and a pedestrian promenade. It would employ 1,090 people.

Investors include Chicago developer Neil Bluhm, lawyer Richard Sprague, former State Supreme Court Justice William L. Lamb, and auto sales magnate Robert M. Potamkin.

The board did not explain why they selected each applicant. A written explanation will be issued later.

The board was supposed to follow strict criteria when selecting the winners. Among them: whether applicants can maintain a successful, revenue-producing casino; how they would finance the casino; their history of promoting diversity; and their impact on the communities in which they plan to build.

The move puts casinos on the northern and southern ends of the city's central waterfront.

Tad Decker, the board chairman, prior to the vote addressed the complaint that there hadn't been enough public input by pointedly stressing the number of public hearings held around the state.

"No jurisdiction in recent history... has moved so quickly and so efficiently," he said.

Although members voted in public to award licenses in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and other locations, any discussions and deliberations leading up were held in private.

In those closed sessions, the board engaged in "quasi-judicial" discussions that "fully and frankly" reviewed each applicant, Decker said.

In Pittsburgh, the board awarded a license to Detroit-based casino developer Don H. Barden.

Las Vegas-based casino operator Las Vegas Sands Corp. won a license for a Bethlehem casino and businessman Louis A. DeNaples won one for a Pocono Mountain resort.

Talks involved privileged financial information about the applicants and confidential background information about the people running the companies.

The state's open-meetings law and the state law that legalized gambling exempted most of this information from public disclosure.

Although gambling experts say Pennsylvania's approach to awarding licenses is not unique - other states have followed similar guidelines - the process angered anti-casino groups, which say the board has shut them out and shunned them from the beginning.

Many in those groups say that there are still concerns and many questions about the casinos' impact on neighborhoods, and that the board is rushing licenses through so the first casinos can be running next year.

The losers in Philadelphia were TrumpStreet, Riverwalk Casino, and Pinnacle.

The licenses are considered preliminary until any court appeals are decided and fees paid by the winners and construction is completed.

The law passed in 2004 authorized up to 61,000 slot machines at 14 sites