Column: Pequot casino road goes to nowhere

Monday, March 23, 2009  

"I sure wish I hadn't done that.

If recessions had names that sentence might be a good choice for this one.

Imagine how many people are strung out on regret over things purchased in the exuberant times before the bubble burst. I sure wish I hadn't leased that $800-a-month Range Rover, or I sure wish I hadn't traded up to a 5,000-square-foot McMansion with a time-release mortgage bomb.

Mashantucket Pequot Chairman Michael Thomas can recite more of these than anyone I can think of, except for maybe for some of the Bernie Madoff victims.

Thomas need only look up at his MGM Grand tower, a $700 million project completed just in time for the start of the recession, to think, gee, “I sure wish I hadn't done that.” Slot revenues actually declined after it opened.

But I think Thomas might save an even bigger “I sure wish I hadn't done that” for the $67 million in Route 2 improvements the tribe is still working on. It's never going to produce a dime of revenue, no matter what happens to the recession."

Get the Story:
David Collins: A Pequot Road To Nowhere (The New London Day 3/22)