Casino move has key support

Walker, Norquist, Pratt open to downtown relocation

By STEVE SCHULTZE AND DAVE UMHOEFER sschultze@journalsentinel.com

Wednesday, May 28, 2003

Three Milwaukee political leaders say they're open to an expanded Potawatomi Bingo Casino relocating to downtown from its location in the Menomonee Valley, a move that would require unusual federal approval of the new site as Indian trust land.

Mayor John O. Norquist, once an outspoken opponent of casino gambling in the city, said Tuesday that the move, suggested by a group interested in attracting more industry back to the valley, was "an idea worth exploring."

County Executive Scott Walker, in a separate interview, called putting the casino where the demolished Park East Freeway once stood "a great fit." The county will inherit the 16 acres of former freeway property from the state when the demolition is finished.

And Marvin Pratt, the Common Council president and mayoral hopeful, shared the interest in exploring a new home for gambling downtown.

That local support could bode well for what is so far a trial balloon, though that positive sentiment represents only early and tentative opinions of the informal plan.

The tribe remains officially non-committal about the notion, which has been floated by the Menomonee Valley Partners, a non-profit association created in 1999 to promote redevelopment of the city's historic industrial corridor.

That group has been shopping the idea, saying a casino could boost the downtown economy and draw more casino patrons. Leaving the valley could free up industrial development space there and ease rising real estate price pressure, said Lilith Fowler, executive director of the Menomonee Valley Partners.

"In an ideal world, what would happen is you would move your entertainment use out of your industrial area," Fowler said. "We recognize this would be a pretty complicated undertaking. But if Milwaukee really wants to excel as a city, one of the things we have to do is not dismiss" such bold ideas.

The suggestion is to carve out a new casino site roughly bounded by 4th and 7th streets and Juneau and McKinley avenues.

That would put it near the old Pabst Brewery, where developers have announced plans for a $300 million entertainment, housing, office and retail redevelopment called PabstCity. Developers hope to include movie theaters, a House of Blues restaurant and nightclub and other entertainment as part of the mix.

Jerry Franke, president of Wispark LLC, a subsidiary of Wisconsin Energy and key partner in PabstCity, said relocating the casino would fit well with the brewery project and the downtown scene in general.

"I see it as a way to enhance the downtown area -- all of downtown, not just PabstCity," Franke said.

Pending lawsuit

So far, the tribe has neither embraced nor dismissed a move.

Potawatomi spokesman Tom Krajewski said the downtown casino idea would be explored only after a lawsuit challenging the legality of its new gambling agreement with the state is resolved.

State Senate Majority Leader Mary Panzer and Assembly Speaker John Gard claim in a lawsuit that the deal illegally excluded the Legislature from its formation and violated a 1993 state ban on gambling expansions. The case is pending in federal court.

The agreement, and similar pacts for eight other Wisconsin tribes, removes most restrictions on casino games and doesn't expire. The old gambling agreements had five-year terms, which hobbled tribes' efforts to borrow money for expansions.

Several hurdles stand in the way of moving the casino downtown. Among them:

-- Financial: The tribe opened its current $120 million facility just three years ago and has been planning on launching a $120 million expansion at its Menomonee Valley site by fall. If the tribe were to shift its operation downtown, how much could it expect to get for an empty casino building in the valley?

-- Political: The new casino plot would need to be declared as federal trust land. Such reviews have taken years in some cases. Only two off-reservation casinos that actually were built have received federal approval since the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act: for the Potawatomi tribe's Milwaukee facility in 1990 and for the Kalispel tribe for a casino near Spokane, Wash., in 1998.

The idea of a Potawatomi casino shift envisions essentially swapping the 4.5 acres held in trust for the tribe in the Menomonee Valley for a similar plot at the former freeway spur site. Such a swap apparently has never been considered before by the U.S. Interior Department.

-- Timing: How quickly could the tribe shift gears to a new site? Each day that goes by without the expansion permitted by the tribe's new gambling compact for more slot machines, craps tables and roulette is money forgone.

Fowler acknowledged everything would have to come together relatively quickly for the casino shift to happen.

"The clock is ticking," she said.

Norquist said his onetime fight against casinos in Milwaukee is over.

"I fought it. I didn't think it was a good idea to expand it, but I lost. The question is, what is the best place for it?" Norquist said. He said he opposed an earlier suggestion to place a Potawatomi casino downtown near The Shops of Grand Avenue because that proximity would have hurt stores there.

He said the location now being proposed would likely boost hotel and convention business downtown.

Walker pledged to actively support the move if the Potawatomi concur and if certain other conditions are met.

"Our reaction was we were intrigued, we were interested," when the idea was pitched to him earlier this month, Walker said.

A casino would be a "great fit" for an expanding entertainment district in the area that might include a Harley-Davidson museum, the House of Blues, movie theaters and other amenities, Walker said.

The preferred site is less than two blocks north of the Bradley Center. Walker said he understood one of the ideas was to link a downtown casino to the Bradley Center by skywalk.

Walker said he would insist on the county getting a payment in lieu of taxes if the casino were built on county-owned land. The county currently receives more than $3 million annually from the tribe under a deal reached in 1999 when the tribe sought an earlier expansion.

The county executive said he is working through White House channels for a reading on whether the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs would be open to fast action on approving putting downtown land into trust. Bureau spokeswoman Nedra Darling declined to comment on the idea Tuesday.

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