After its efforts to bring a video lottery terminal facility to the New York town of Medford failed in late-April, Suffolk County Off-Track Betting has revealed that it has now put the proposed site for the miniature casino up for sale.
According to a report from The Long Island Advance, Suffolk County Off-Track Betting has signed a deal with Delaware North Companies that will see the 31-acre site of the former Brookhaven Multiplex it purchased for $10 million put on the market.
However, Phil Nolan, President for Suffolk County Off-Track Betting, told the newspaper that the “for sale” status does not necessarily mean that the Long Island parcel will be sold.
“We are looking at alternatives,” Nolan told the newspaper. “Frankly, we spent over $10 million on the Medford site when Ed Romaine promised us he would welcome us with open arms.”
Under the terms of a confidentiality agreement, Nolan was unable to convey details of which other Suffolk County sites they were investigating but he did state that the group had continued to work on its Medford plan including the preparation of a traffic study and the remediation of the site’s septic tanks.
“We bought that site and we have been cooperating,” Nolan declared. “Other folks are talking to us. We are keeping all our options open and if things change course then we will sell the property.”
Nolan asserted that the deal with Delaware North Companies formalizes that they are looking at other sites with a final decision due as soon as possible.
“We’ve learned from this experience that we have to be more sure of things than getting someone’s word,” Noland proclaimed. “A couple of sites approached us but to shift gears to another spot will take a quite a bit of time and we have to be sure in fact that that site is better than the Medford site. We don’t want to switch to a worse situation.”
Nolan explained that Delaware North Companies will be tasked with conducting the search for a potential new location and a possibility exists that some of the work already completed could be used at another location.
“We’re trying to open a casino in this county to produce hundreds of jobs, to produce millions of dollars in revenue and save our constituents a trip,” Nolan said. “The day this opens it’s going to be a huge success.”