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No Saugerties Casino, Inc. News Release October 2006 THE TRUTH COMES OUT: THE CASINO DEVELOPERS’ PLANS FOR THRUWAY EXPANSION Several
weeks ago, a representative of the Winston Farm’s owners notified the Town of
To date,
neither the developers nor the chief of the Seneca-Cayugas have said a word
publicly. We don’t know if they’re moving on or if they’ve set their sights
on another property in Saugerties. We don’t know if the Wilmots have
transferred their allegiance and financial backing to another tribe that is
not saddled with the legal roadblocks of the Oklahoma-based Seneca-Cayugas.
We don’t know if the Wilmots are involved with the activity on Route 32
South, just across the Saugerties border in the Town of For
these reasons, No Saugerties Casino will remain vigilant and pro-active in
ferreting out information and ensuring that our community is kept abreast of
what is going on. Now, we
have startling information on just how massive the changes would have been —
and still could be — to Saugerties had
the casino proposal been successful. Under the Freedom of Information law, we
asked the New York State Thruway Authority to give us information on any
activity regarding proposed changes to Exit 20. In response, we’ve received a
set of maps, schematics and documents, dated March 2006, that the developers
submitted to the Thruway planners – plans that lay out a scheme that would
have urbanized a large portion of Saugerties and drastically altered not just
traffic patterns, but the nature of our community. The plans
would have made Saugerties the second largest interchange on the Thruway,
with up to 14 lanes spilling out onto Routes 212 and 32-North and the In light
of these figures, we see how seriously the developers were understating their
plans and the impacts those plans would have, when they presented their
proposal-brochure to the Town, Village and public. For example, while they
stated that they expected to accommodate an additional 19,309 visitors to
Saugerties each day, in fact, the projections they gave the Thruway show a
casino, shopping and complex far, far larger than that – with four times the hotel rooms of
Foxwoods, the country’s largest casino resort. Here’s what the documents
show: What the casino
developers stated in their brochure “Closest
to our hearts is the central tenet to the Saugerties Entertainment Resort
project: that we create a project that is in harmony with the pristine
ecology and small-town, peaceful lifestyle that characterize Saugerties and ·
A
601,900-square-foot hotel with 900 luxury suites and rooms ·
512,000
square feet of retail shopping ·
6,000
parking spaces ·
19,309
daily visitors What the developers told the
state Resort Hotels ~ The documents reveal plans for three resort hotels with a total of
2,250,700 square feet and 5,900 rooms. Resort One was to have 1,400 rooms,
Resort Two 2,500 rooms, and Resort Three 2,000 rooms. To put
this in perspective, the Hudson Valley Resort in Kerhonkson has 275 rooms,
Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz has 266 rooms, Foxwoods Casino has three
resort hotels with a total of 1,416 rooms, and Mohegan Sun Casino has 1,200
rooms. Retail ~ Documents show the developers
planning a one-million-square-foot retail shopping mall within the confines
of the sovereign nation casino complex. In comparison, the Hudson Valley
Mall, the largest shopping area in Daily casino traffic ~ The developers’ brochure
stated that the casino complex would receive 19,309 visitors a day, but the
trip generation matrix they submitted to the Thruway shows that figure to be
a grossly deceptive understatement. For a morning peak hour—just one hour—the
developers predict 1,652 cars going into the complex. For an evening peak
hour, they predict 2,689 cars going in. On a weekend, the number jumps to
4,954 cars going in during a single peak hour. Of note is that 3,764 of those
daily peak car trips were destined for the retail center. What they wanted
for the Thruway and surrounding roads The
developers proposed several alternatives for Exit 20: Alternative 1 Change the
northbound toll plaza leading to Route 212 from three to eight lanes.
Relocate the Thruway bridge abutments, widen the bridge and Route 212 to six
lanes. Change the current southbound toll plaza leading to Route 32 from
three to six lanes with a six-lane road leading into Winston Farm. Add an
additional Route 32 casino entrance and exit road on either side of the
historic Wyncoop House. Make Route 32 North into a six-lane road from Route
212 past the Thruway and then five lanes to [To give
you a sense of size, consider this: Exit 23 of the Thruway, which thousands
of commuters to Alternative 2R1 Remove
the existing northbound toll plaza and ramps. Change Route 32 North into a
four-lane road. Change the southbound toll plaza into six lanes with a
traffic light on Route 32-North for entry to and exit from the casino. Build
a new northbound Thruway exit with an eight-lane toll plaza. Build another
four-lane bridge over the Thruway just south of Peoples Road, with extensive
ramping looping through many properties into a new eight-lane toll plaza to
be built on property between the self-storage facility and Casa Blanca Realty
on Route 32N. Construct a new six-lane road leading from the toll plaza into
Winston Farm, just south of Alternative 2R2 Maintain
the existing northbound Thruway exit and plaza. Change the southbound plaza
into six lanes with a four-lane road leading into Winston Farm. Make Route
32-North a four-lane road with two stop lights between Route 212 and Alternative 3 Close
both the north and south Thruway exit and entrance ramps. Build a new Exit 20
plaza. Make northbound traffic exit the Thruway north of In conclusion We urge
our neighbors in the Town of |