The casino issue could become another eternal Buffalo punchline if certain things play out.

In today’s Buffalo News article about the finished casino, Pantano says that the SGC wants to employ 1,000 people and build a permanent facility “eventually.” Kind of like when the SGC said they’d consider keeping the H-O Oats grain elevator up (which was purely just to shut up preservationists and no other reason). Not to say that the Senecas aren’t good for their word *ahem* but that quote just screams out that the new blue-truck depot-looking- thing is going to be there for an extremely, extremely long time. And thats if the Seneca’s are even allowed to put slots in.

If not, then we’ll have that blue thing there anyways, for god knows how long. Why would the Senecas want to spend money on taking down the thing? Its not like they contractually obliged to do anything really.

Paladino said in a BrO interview that the Senecas don’t even want to be downtown, they have to according to the compact.

Will the Seneca’s be allowed to put a casino in Cheektowaga instead? If so, we’ll look back and regret not being able cash in on the money we could have recieved and the potential extra activity around the post-apocalyptic-looking cobblestone district. In fact, imagine a synergy created from the casino, to the Savarino Cobblestone Project, to the HSBC Arena, to Canal Side and you have yourself a potential 24/7 area.

In my opinion a casino in dowtown Buffalo is a wash. Some good coming with an equal amount of bad. But if you’re gonna have a casino, you might as well have a good one and it looks like that will not be the case unless the Senecas are 1. allowed to open for business and 2. follow up on their plans for a permanent facility.

Look forward to adding “downtown casino” to “main place mall”, “metro rail”, “adelphia tower”, “wide right”, “peace bridge”, “no goal”, etc etc etc…

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