Developer Steve Wynn on Friday “promised to design a gambling resort nestled into the landscape of Foxborough, in keeping with the character of rural New England,” according to Mark Arsenault of the BOSTON GLOBE. Wynn released the “first renderings of his proposal, seeking to build community support for a project that has stirred strident opposition.” The “stone and timber palace” he unveiled “seemed transported from a ski mountain in the tony Idaho resort where Wynn built a home.” Wynn on Thursday said, “Foxborough isn’t a place for neon and glitz. It’s a rural residential community, so this (design) is more of a lodge. It’s wood and stone, low-key. But inside it has the kind of fun and grace that folks haven’t seen before.” Wynn sent “glossy mailings, including artist drawings of the proposal and a 20-minute DVD, to about 7,000 households in Foxborough, hoping to wow voters into taking a new look at his proposal for a $1 billion gambling resort, hotel, and convention center across Route 1 from Gillette Stadium.” His plans include a “5,000-car parking garage, retail stores, and a spa, in addition to a gambling room with slot machines and table games.” He would also build “a pedestrian bridge connecting the project with Patriot Place.” Arsenault noted Wynn has added “a sweetener to entice local voters: a public skating rink, usable year-round.” Wynn estimated that the town would get “between $10 million and $15 million a year in tax revenue from the project, which the developer is calling Wynn Foxborough.” Wynn and Patriots Owner Robert Kraft have said consistently that “if the community does not want a casino, they will drop the plan.” Wynn: “I don’t want to be a salesman for this idea. I want to be an engineer of it.’’ He added, “If we poll and the public is swinging our way, I think that’s important for the selectmen to know. If there is movement, the selectmen will feel it’’ (BOSTON GLOBE, 3/3). In Boston, Jerry Kronenberg wrote Wynn’s “gambit doesn’t seem to be changing many minds so far” (BOSTON HERALD, 3/3). Wynn in the mailed brochures wrote that the casino would “create more than 4,000 permanent jobs and about 10,000 construction jobs.” He also said that an agreement “could be reached with the town to cover public safety and other costs associated with the casino and that a study would be done to determine the traffic impact” (AP, 3/2).
