Penn National Gaming firm in its commitment to Valley

The $250 million Penn Nation- al Gaming Inc. will be spending to bring a thoroughbred horse-racing track and a slots-only casino to Austintown may elicit a ho-hum response from Mahoning Valley residents. After all, General Motors Corp. just announced that it will spend $200 million to upgrade its Lordstown assembly facility to produce the second generation of the highly successful Chevrolet Cruze. GM had initially invested $350 million at the plant for the production of the current Cruze model.

Then there’s the $700 million-plus being invested by V&M Star in two state-of-the art steel pipe-making plants on a site straddling Girard and Youngstown.

Finally, the $70 million manufacturing hub to be located in downtown Youngstown has generated international chatter because it’s a partnership between the federal government and nine research universities, including Youngstown State, Carnegie Mellon and Case Western Reserve; five community colleges, including Eastern Gateway Community College; 40 companies, and 11 nonprofit organizations in the Cleveland-Youngstown-Pittsburgh Tech Belt

The feds are kicking in a $30 million federal grant, while the other $40 million will come from the local participants.

It’s evident that the Mahoning Valley is on a winning streak when it comes to job-creation initiatives, but the Penn National Gaming racino project in Austintown has an added element that could pay dividends for many local companies.

According to Timothy J. Wilmott, Penn National’s president and chief operating officer, and Eric Schippers, senior vice president for public affairs, the customer base will be made up of people willing to drive up to 30 to 40 minutes each way. Wilmott and Schippers said players will spend $80 to $90 during a three- to four-hour visit to the Mahoning Valley Race Course and Hollywood Slots casino.

The Penn National Gaming officials said during a visit last week with Vindicator editors and writers that they are anticipating a million visitors a year to the Austintown complex, which is scheduled to open in the first half of 2014. Ground breaking is expected this fall.

The race course will have the newest thoroughbred racing track in Ohio, while the casino will feature 1,500 slot machines — with the ability to add another 1,000 if the market turns out to be bigger than Penn National expects.

Of the $250 million the company has committed to the Austintown project, $100 million will be spent on the slot machines, restaurants, entertainment facility and retail businesses. The racetrack, grandstand and stables will carry a price tag of $25 million. The company is paying the state of Ohio a fee of $75 million to relocate its Beulah Park track near Columbus and $50 million licensing fee to the state lottery commission for the slots.

The casino will be open 20 hours a day, seven days a week, while the horse-racing season will last 55 to 60 days. There also will be simulcast races from other tracks.

Jobs

About 1,000 jobs, direct and indirect, will be created; the construction phase will generate 1,000 jobs.

Penn National has paid $4.6 million for the 186-acre Centerpointe property off state Route 46 near the Interstate 80 interchange.

Under a law recently enacted, Austintown and other communities in Ohio with racinos will receive $1 million to be paid in December and June and $500,000 annually thereafter. The money will be used for police, fire and other services and for infrastructure or capital costs.

Wilmott and Schippers acknowledged that their optimism about the racino is prompted by all the other projects that are attracting hundreds of millions of dollars to the Valley.

Such optimism can be contagious.