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Mohegan Sun Opens 1,200-room Hotel,  Will Attempt to Attract Conventions that Otherwise Might go to Boston
or New York
By Chris Reidy, The Boston Globe
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News 

Apr. 19--UNCASVILLE, Conn.--Since it opened in 1996, the Mohegan Sun casino has established itself as one of the premier gambling destinations in New England, a smaller rival to the nearby Foxwoods Resort Casino and Atlantic City to the south. 

With the opening of a hotel next week, Mohegan Sun is now pressing to diversify beyond gambling and, like Foxwoods, move into the potentially lucrative business of staging conferences, trade shows, and regional meetings. 

And part of a strategy to steal conferences away from Boston, New York, Providence, and Hartford -- not to mention Foxwoods -- has been a push to draw some of the big names of Boston night life. 

Among the Boston-area restaurants that recently opened at Mohegan Sun were Todd English's Tuscany and Jasper White's Summer Shack. And some time this summer, Hub impresario Patrick Lyons plans to open a nightclub here that could accommodate 800 people. 

"It sounds like they're trying to create a Boston environment in a self-contained bubble," said Patrick Moscaritolo, president of the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau. 

With the opening of a 1,200-room hotel, a big spa, and a huge ballroom, Mohegan Sun is close to the end of a $1 billion expansion effort. The goal is to transform a day-tripper's casino into a sort of adult theme park and "legendary destination" in which gambling is one element of a larger mix, said Mitchell Etess, a Mohegan Sun executive vice president. 

"Now we can go after conventions that would otherwise go to Boston or New York," said Etess. "In order to compete with other convention centers, we needed brand-name restaurants." Last fall, as part of the ongoing expansion, Mohegan Sun opened a second casino as well as a mini-shopping mall, a cabaret, a 10,000-seat entertainment arena, and several name-brand restaurants and shops, including a Michael Jordan's Steak House and a Starbucks. 

Moscaritolo said Mohegan Sun won't be a threat to Boston's convention business, though he noted, "We've never competed with a gaming facility before." Boston's Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center has nearly twice as much exhibition space as Mohegan Sun, he said, and the Hynes typically books events attended by doctors, educators, and financial-services professionals. At night, this audience is more interested in culture than slot machines, Moscaritolo said. 

Knowing that not everyone likes gambling, the Mohegan Sun complex is designed so that conventioneers never have to cross a casino floor to get from one meeting to another. Even if they want to go to dinner or catch a ZZ Top concert, they can steer clear of the gambling tables. 

While Mohegan Sun might take some regional corporate meetings and fraternal gatherings away from Springfield and Worcester, it's too small, too far from airports, and has too few hotel rooms to hurt Boston's convention business, said Art Canter, executive director of the Massachusetts Lodging Association. 

"We're building a new convention center because the Hynes is too small," he said. "And the reason people come here is Boston, not the facility." Mohegan Sun is about an hour away from airports outside of Hartford and Providence, Etess said, and after Sept. 11, many consumers are looking for regional conventions they can drive to. Among the first events to book the upgraded Mohegan Sun are a regional gathering of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, a Nike coaches' clinic, and a conference by Roche Laboratories. 

Big conventions that once went to Chicago and Houston now go to Las Vegas, and gambling and entertainment may be reasons why, said William Eadington, director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada at Reno. 

As new casinos proliferate, the big question for established casinos, he said, is how to diversify. Some have gotten into the convention business, which attracts an expense-account customer who wants high-end restaurants and hotels, Eadington said. Las Vegas woos gamblers on the weekend and conventioneers during the week, he said. One thing that has changed is the old philosophy that everything else was a loss leader for the casino. 

"Hotels, restaurants, entertainment -- they're all profit centers now," said Eadington, adding, "Conventioneers don't have to be gamers for these places to make money." Foxwoods, which is about 10 miles from Mohegan Sun and opened its casino in 1992, has a different approach. It has just over half the convention space of Mohegan Sun and it runs its own restaurants rather than bringing in celebrity chefs, said Bruce MacDonald, the Foxwoods director of media relations. 

"We've always been interested in the business of conventions, workshops, and conferences, though gaming is our principal business," MacDonald said. "Conferences bring people to the casinos." For the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, Mohegan Sun reported net revenues of $786.8 million, up 6.4 percent. Foxwoods does not report total revenues. 

Betting on conventions can be as risky as playing roulette, partly because the supply of convention space outstrips demand, said New York-based hotel consultant Stanley Turkel. 

"If given a choice, conventioneers prefer to go to places where there is gambling" or entertainment on a grand scale, Turkel said. 

"That's why Las Vegas, Orlando, and New Orleans are among the top choices." "Will Mohegan Sun steal away business and hurt other convention centers in the Northeast?" Turkel asked. "My answer is yes. But will Mohegan Sun do enough business to pay a good return on its investment? 

I'm not sure about this." Since 1978, Patrick Lyons has been a big part of Boston night life. 

With partner Ed Sparks, Lyons's brother John, and various investors, he is involved in such local clubs and restaurants as Avalon, Sonsie, and Lucky's. He is also a part owner of Jasper White's Summer Shack. 

Lyons said he had little interest in Connecticut casinos until he was "stalked" by a Mohegan Sun leasing agent who wanted him and White to open a Summer Shack. "Give me four hours," the agent pleaded. Finally, Lyons relented and made the 80-minute drive to Uncasville. 

Throngs of people swarming through an over-the-top environment that now has a planetarium and indoor waterfall convinced him that Mohegan Sun had drawing power, he said. 

"I saw the casino, heard the pitch, and said, `We're there,' " Lyons recalled. 

White said he was equally "enthralled," and the partners agreed to move ahead on a $4.5 million Summer Shack for Mohegan Sun. 

Etess said the Mohegan Sun "wow factor" that won over Lyons and White will work its magic on convention planners. They'll arrive skeptics and leave believers, he contended. 

Lyons won't disclose Summer Shack sales but, presumably, he wouldn't be moving ahead on his idea for a big nightclub if business hadn't been satisfactory. The club may actually be three clubs in one. One room will be "a lounge-lizard environment" with a 1960s Vegas feel, he said. A second room may have a New Orleans motif, and a third could have a big dance floor. 

For White, a Summer Shack at Mohegan Sun offered an additional advantage. To get good prices on the best seafood, a fish restaurant needs to do a high volume of business, and the new Summer Shack gives him plenty of that, he said. 

Mohegan Sun isn't the first casino Todd English has been involved with. Three and a half years ago, one of his Olives restaurants opened in Las Vegas. All told, he said he has an interest in 15 restaurants, about half of them in Greater Boston. With the two casino restaurants, English has licensing agreements with local partners. By lending his name and menu expertise, he avoids the day-to-day challenges of running a restaurant from afar. 

"What's good about this is that I get to enjoy some of the financial rewards," he said. "And I don't have to worry about the busboys." 

-----To see more of The Boston Globe, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.boston.com/globe 

(c) 2002, The Boston Globe. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. SBUX, NKE, 


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