Is Austintown in the home stretch?

By Elise Franco | March 17, 2012 at 12:10a.m.

Austintown

A new agreement between Penn National Gaming Inc. and Gov. John Kasich outlining the relocation of two horse-racing tracks brings Austintown one step closer to a multimillion-dollar thoroughbred-racing facility.

Penn National announced Friday that the agreement, a nonbinding memorandum of understanding between the company and the governor’s office, calls for Penn National’s Beulah Park, located near Columbus, to relocate to Austintown, and Raceway Park, near Toledo, to move to Dayton.

Originally Penn National planned to move Raceway Park, a harness track, to Austintown but announced in February that it planned to build the thoroughbred track there instead. The site is the Centerpointe property off state Route 46, just past the Interstate 80 interchange.

The memorandum is the next step in actually bringing those plans to fruition, and Kasich said he’s pleased with the progress.

“We’re very, very pleased,” he told The Vindicator on Friday. “Some had a sense that Youngstown was being passed over, but it’s clear that Youngstown was always a priority.

“We wanted to get this done the right way.”

Penn National intends to spend about $200 million on the relocation projects, plus $100 million in licensing fees. The agreement includes an additional $75 million relocation fee per track.

Penn National would have to pay the state 33.5 percent of the revenue generated from video lottery terminals, a rate that is slightly higher than what Ohio’s new casinos will pay.

The move still isn’t a done deal, however.

State Sen. Joe Schiavoni of Canfield, D-33rd, assistant minority leader, said Penn National must now petition the state racing commission, which must sign off on the agreement and issue the licenses allowing relocation.

Eric Schippers, Penn National’s senior vice president of public affairs and government relations, said the company is waiting on the racing commission to finalize the format and details of the application before Penn National can file for approval.

Schiavoni said at the state level, officials continue their work toward the approval of VLTs, which are the key component in building the new tracks.

Schiavoni said the state’s casino bill was approved by the House of Representatives last week and was on the Senate floor for sponsored testimony Wednesday.

“Basically it’s a very big, comprehensive bill,” he said. “It took about a month to get through the House, and it will probably take us a similar amount of time.

“Everybody is interested in getting this up and running, so it’s going to move.”

Austintown Trustee Jim Davis said the announcement is another step in the right direction, and he’s pleased by the news.

“It seems like it’s almost been two years that this project’s been going on, and we’re finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.

Davis said he’s optimistic that the project will continue to progress and the VLT issue will be resolved soon.

“People here in the Mahoning Valley always say, ‘That’s never going to happen here,’ and this was just another one of those projects that people thought was a pipe dream,” he said.

“The project is going to go forward. It’s just a matter of time.”