HARRISBURG -- The state Gaming Control Board approved the takeover of Pittsburgh's casino project by an investment group led by Chicago billionaire Neil Bluhm.
The decision staves off a possible foreclosure sale of the half-built casino, paves the way for construction to resume next week, and guarantees dozens of local contractors will get tens of millions of dollars owed to them for work they performed in April, May and June.
The $780 million North Shore project stalled in June when former owner Don Barden, a Detroit businessman, ran out of money. Bluhm, a real estate developer and owner of three other casinos, leads an investment team that will put up $205 million.
The complex financing deal, which involves international lenders and two domestic pension funds, could be finalized as early as Friday and work could restart Monday.
"We're not ones for wasting time," said Daniel J. Keating III, owner of Keating Construction, the project's primary contractor. Keating is a partner of Bluhm's in Philadelphia's Sugar House Casino project. That project has been stalled by local opposition.
Subcontractors are owed more than $50 million. Without the license transfer, and the deep pockets it brings to the project, some could have gone out of business, affecting thousands of families, said Dean Mosites, owner of Mosites Construction. Mosites is handling concrete work at the casino.
A failure would've raised unemployment among the region's construction workers by 5 percent, said Richard Stanizzo, president of the Pittsburgh Building Trades Council.
Some Western Pennsylvania lawmakers, including Sens. Jim Ferlo and Jane Orie and Rep. Mike Turzai, wanted the board to strip Barden of his license and rebid it.
Cyrus Petri, the board's chief enforcement counsel, said such a decision would have meant Pittsburgh wouldn't have gotten a casino for three or more years, as Barden's license got tied up in bankruptcy court and the board then went through a lengthy search for a new license holder.
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