‘No negatives’ for Slidell casino says Convergence study
By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – When St. Tammany Corporation CEO Chris Masingill introduced the idea in February of the first casino ever to be built in the parish he said it was after his economic development agency for the parish had done extensive due diligence to see if it was “a right fit” for St. Tammany.
Months later when Masingill released the Community Agreement that ST Corp had agreed on with Peninsula Pacific Entertainment (P2E), detailing the potential financial windfall to the parish if the casino was approved here, he called it “the best agreement ever in Louisiana.”
However, following recent months with mounting opposition to the casino from public officials, a 400-member group of parish business owner s, church leaders, and various other organizations, the head cheerleader for the P2E casino apparently realized they needed more ammunition in their arsenal if the public was to support the proposal in the coming Dec. 11 parishwide vote.
This week, Masingill announced results of what he termed “an independent community impact study” that he hopes will provide “fact based and data driven research” of the real impact from the Camellia Bay Casino that would be built at the Oak Harbor exit of I-10.
The extensive study that cost $65,000 was conducted by Convergence Strategy Group from New Orleans, a company that acknowledges doing over 400 casino-related studies, includes seven areas of research that covers the following topics: businesses and employment, property values, income levels of residents, crime and public safety, social welfare of residents, tourism, and tax revenues to local government.
On Tuesday, Masingill released the first two portions of the study covering Business Impacts and Property Values, discussing the study results in a ZOOM press conference with Convergence partners Scott Fisher, Ph.D. and Suzanne Perilloux Leckert, who have 40 years of experience conducting studies for casinos.
Masingill acknowledged the fact that St. Tammany Corp saw the need for additional studies and research since he called opposition to the casino “a campaign of distortion.” He added that “the more education on this project, the better.
“St. Tammany Corporation, as we do with every significant/major economic development project, conducts an internal project review on the company, jobs, investment, and other project metrics as a part of our responsibility to conduct due diligence. We have extensively evaluated this project, and we stand behind our own internal research and communicated that information to our government partners when they overwhelmingly concluded that we should move forward with bringing this project before our community for a public vote.
“However, we also recognized that because of the nature of this project, as demonstrated by the line of questioning during the special parish council meeting in June, that it would be prudent to have a third party research team to independently assess the project and its potential impacts on the seven areas of focus in the report. These seven focus areas, we felt, best provided answers to the questions that we heard from the public,” he added.
He agreed that the “disinformation,” as he called it, was a reason to seek the study, something he actually sought after the June meeting of the Parish Council when a six hour meeting included dozens of opponents.
“This additional layer of research will provide further fact-based and data driven information to help the public make an informed decision. This information also reinforces that our internal due diligence and research is solid,” Masingill said.
He also noted that “entire websites and social pages designed to spread erroneous claims that contribute to public disinformation” are another reason he wanted the study.
The study proved to be a glowing report for Peninsula Pacific and their planned project, with Masingill stating “there was no negative impact” we found for property values or for local business.
“They found no negatively impacted property values, no patterns of business closures, sales taxes increased, home values equal to or higher than the area—everything was very positive,” he said.
The study reportedly was comparing the potential casino to “comparable communities to Slidell,” said Leckert, but she then reported comparisons to Baton Rouge, Lake Charles and the Mississippi Gulf Coasts, all areas with much higher population than Slidell.
Four other casino areas were used as comparisons to Slidell, although only one of them was a smaller community such as Slidell.
Among the casino communities compared were Baton Rouge, Pittsburg, KS, the Mississippi Gulf Coast and Tiverton, RI, while a fifth site, Wheatland, CA, was looked at but noted as “no clear answer due in part to COVID.”
In Baton Rouge they stated businesses “increased sales and grew their businesses after the casino opening,” while on the Gulf Coast, which has 13 casinos, Convergence pointed to “hundreds of new businesses and tens of thousands of jobs added to the area” since casinos opened, although the similarity to Slidell did not match up considering only one small casino is proposed here by P2E.
P2E signed a Community Agreement with the parish, and St. Tammany Corporation, promising a 5 percent net gaming revenue contribution to over two dozen parish entities, while they also have said they will provide $35 million to build a multi-use sports complex in Slidell.
The company said they expect up to 750 permanent jobs within three years, while they also have offered to build a Sheriff’s Office sub-station in the Lakeshore Estates/Oak Harbor area near the casino, despite claiming crime will not increase near the casino.
The report noted the following:
•Business Impacts: The East St. Tammany gaming and entertainment resort is expected to have a positive impact on surrounding businesses. Review of the data on the number of businesses, employment, wages, and retail sales before and after casino development show a range of positive to neutral impacts. No comparable casino development has been identified where there has been negative impacts on small business from casino resort development.
•Property Values: Where new gaming and resort developments have been introduced during the past decade, there has been neighborhood home value appreciation at rates higher than or similar to nearby neighborhoods and towns. The research shows that gaming and resort developments do not negatively impact property values.
While acknowledging that “property value declines” in the area of casinos was previously reportedly from the 1990s, they cited a National Association of Realtors report (from 2013) for Springfield, MA, that said there was a 21.4 percent increase in property values from 2014 to 2018.
Convergence partner Leckert did not return e-mail questions for further comment on the matter.
The entire reports released so far can be found on the St. Tammany Corporation website at:
Sttammanycorp.org