Just as Inner Harbor redevelopment transformed Baltimore's derelict port of rotting wharves and abandoned warehouses, Mayor Sheila Dixon's administration believes that a slot machine casino could revive a moribund industrial district while reducing city property taxes.
But critics contend that a gambling venue in the shadow of M&T Bank Stadium would worsen the poverty and crime that plague neighborhoods just beyond the city's center. They doubt that such a project would bring meaningful tax relief.
The city's reputation and future could be shaped when voters decide next week whether to legalize 15,000 slot machines at five locations around the state, including in Baltimore and near Laurel Park race course.
The decision could take Baltimore in the direction of other postindustrial cities, such as Detroit and St. Louis, which have turned to gambling to prop up the economy and government. Or voters could tell Baltimore leaders to stay on the path of trying to reverse years of decline by attracting high-end housing and white-collar jobs.
"The Inner Harbor is the centerpiece for the city," said former Gov. William Donald Schaefer, who championed the urban renewal project while Baltimore mayor in the 1970s and '80s. He worries that slots would change the area's character. "And I'm not happy about that," he said.
"I do understand slots have to be somewhere," he added. "So I don't disapprove 100 percent, because it is a moneymaker."
If the slots referendum passes, the Baltimore casino would be situated in an industrial wedge of city-owned land roughly bounded by Russell Street and the Patapsco River at the southern highway entrance to the city. The warehouse district is about a mile south of the Inner Harbor. The location was specified in a General Assembly-approved measure that put the matter to a vote.
The site appears to be a compromise that would put the casino within walking distance of sports stadiums, the Baltimore Convention Center and other attractions while shielding residential neighborhoods.
Deputy Mayor Andrew Frank said the city lobbied for strict geographic limits, including a requirement that slots be at least a quarter mile from residential areas. Dixon opposed putting slots at Pimlico Race Course or the Inner Harbor, Frank said.
City officials and business groups say a casino would create jobs, boost convention center bookings, spur economic development on one of the city's few remaining waterfront parcels and ensure that tourism dollars are not siphoned off by slots parlors in other locations.
