Taunton casino breaks ground - Lowell Sun Online

An excavator demolishes a building during Tuesday's official groundbreaking for a resort-style casino in Taunton. AP PHOTO Sun staff photos can be ordered by visiting our SmugMug site.

TAUNTON -- With the swing of an excavator claw crashing down on a vacant industrial building, the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe officially jumped into New England's casino race Tuesday, breaking ground on what it hopes will become Massachusetts' first Las Vegas-style resort. The federally recognized, Cape Cod tribe has set out an ambitious timetable: the projected $1 billion First Light casino, hotel and entertainment complex will be partly open by next summer. "On this land, we're building a modern Indian nation," said Tribal Council Chairman Cedric Cromwell. "This is so much more than a casino. This is self-determination. We're paving the way for our economic future." The resort is being built on a tribe-owned industrial park in the southeastern Massachusetts city of Taunton. The land is part of an over 300-acre federal reservation recently designated for the Mashpee Wampanoag, who trace their ancestry to the Native Americans that encountered the Pilgrims about 400 years ago. MGM and Wynn are also racing to open resort casinos in Massachusetts but have faced delays and aren't slated to open their facilities until late 2018, at the earliest. Taunton Mayor Thomas Hoye on Tuesday called the tribe's project, which is being financed by the Genting Group, a major Malaysia-based casino developer, as a "game changer" in the casino race. First Light jumps into an increasingly crowded gambling picture in the region between Boston and Providence, R.I. Plainridge Park, a more modest slots parlor and harness racing track, opened last year in Plainville, some 25 miles from Taunton. Over the state line in Lincoln, R.I., the Twin River Casino has evolved from a greyhound track to a slots parlor and now a full-scale casino. Rhode Island voters in November will also decide on the company's plan to open another full-scale casino in Tiverton, near the Massachusetts line. And Neil Bluhm, a prominent casino builder from Chicago who's helping finance the lawsuit against the tribe, is proposing a $677 million resort in Brockton, roughly 16 miles from the tribe's Taunton casino site. Bluhm has suggested the two major resorts, along with other gambling options in the region, can coexist. Richard McGowan, a business professor and gambling expert at Boston College, isn't convinced either project is feasible. "Both plans are unrealistic," he said. "Once the Wynn casino is built near Boston, then the Boston casinogoers will no longer have to travel. That is the casino which will reap the profits of Massachusetts casino gambling."

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