The best — and worst — places to put a Chicago casino

The best place in Chicago to put a casino?

Michigan Avenue and Lake Street, which is a short distance from Millennium Park, the Riverwalk and the Randolph Street theater district.

The worst place? The former Michael Reese Hospital site on the Near South Side — or any other isolated, blank-slate location.

I base this on conversations with gaming and hospitality industry experts Andrew Klebanow and Steven Gallaway, an illuminating white paper they co-authored on “Casinos and the City” and observations of casino districts in other cities.

It’s not advice people want to hear. But understanding the thinking behind it might help Chicago avoid the fate of Atlantic City, New Jersey, and other failed gambling meccas.

Two conclusions:

• The best way to ensure that a casino helps, rather than hurts, its host city is to put it in the middle of a hot entertainment district — entertainment meaning amusements other than gambling.
• Casinos aren’t a neighborhood revitalization tool. If you put a casino in some down-and-out location hoping to spark a revival, you’re kidding yourself. Casinos don’t bring vitality to an urban area. If carelessly designed, they can suck vitality out.

Chicago should follow London model

There are two ways to build a casino, it appears.

The first is the “island casino” model — the term used by Klebanow and Gallaway in their 2015 report. The casino and related activity — typically a hotel, restaurants and bars, shops, entertainment venues, other attractions and parking — are designed as a single, self-contained complex.

Patrons drive to the casino and don’t leave until they’ve spent their last dime hours later and drive home. They never set foot in the surrounding neighborhood and might as well have been visiting Madagascar. The great majority of U.S. casinos are designed this way, Klebanow and Gallaway found.

The second approach is the London model, as seen in London’s West End, which besides being a business hub is one of the world’s premier entertainment districts. Many of London’s 30 or so casinos are in the West End, including several clustered around Leicester Square in the heart of the theater district.

Leicester Square, I can attest, hosts one of the liveliest street scenes you’ll ever encounter. A busy area just about any time, people throng there at night, drawn mostly by the cinemas and live theaters that are the most conspicuous attraction. Though not shy about making their presence known, the casinos are just one entertainment option among many.

That’s why the casinos in Leicester Square and elsewhere around London work. They’re not islands. They fit seamlessly into the surrounding neighborhood.

A good example is the Hippodrome, an old entertainment venue a short distance from Leicester Square that was converted into a casino in 2012. The five-story building fills an entire block. Most of the ground-floor frontage on the major streets is lined with brightly lit storefronts and building entrances. Many are part of or lead into the casino. But there also are a pizza parlor, a discount theater ticket shop, even a subway station entrance.

The streets surrounding the Hippodrome are lined with other venues, including pubs, restaurants, theaters and other casinos. Plenty of entertainment can be found just by walking around.

The Hippodrome is No. 1 on TripAdvisor’s list of London’s 20 top casinos.

Gallaway says it makes money, though he won’t say how much.

He says it differs from other London casinos in that it puts more attractions under one roof, including a top-flight restaurant and an entertainment venue and has a lively bar scene. You don’t have to gamble to have a good time there, he says.

If the Hippodrome fits into the neighborhood and also gives gamblers and non-gamblers alike opportunities to spend their money on the premises, that makes it the perfect model for Chicago.

Not all London neighborhoods with casinos are as hopping as Leicester Square. But using Google Maps to examine 10 London venues, not one is an island. All front on ordinary city streets. Most share the block with businesses that range from restaurants to pharmacies. All are readily accessible by taxi, but none had porte-cocheres or other elaborate accommodations for cars. All seem like part of the neighborhood.

Yes, London casinos generally are smaller than those in the United States. Klebanow says that if maximizing revenue is the only goal, a big island casino is a better way to accomplish that.

If we’re going to have casinos, I’d say we’ll be happier if they’re an organic part of the city, not bubbles dropped from space.

Risks of a casino downtown

Putting a casino in downtown Chicago has risks. Klebanow and Gallaway write of the demise of downtown Reno, Nevada, which at one time was a “vibrant entertainment, gaming and shopping district.”

Then, two casinos on downtown Reno’s main drag tore down a supermarket that separated them, replaced it with a new resort casino and connected all of the buildings with skybridges — in effect converting their street-oriented venues into a large island casino.

Robbed of foot traffic, surrounding businesses soon closed. “Today, downtown Reno is a shadow of its former self,” Klebanow and Gallaway wrote.

Chicago isn’t immune to such problems. The Loop once was home to an impressive collection of movie palaces, which largely disappeared in the 1970s and 1980s. Its resurgence as an entertainment center is relatively recent.

With a few shortsighted decisions, driven by a need to maximize tax revenue, who’s to say the Loop couldn’t go south again?

Lesser sites

Fear of messing up the Loop, coupled with a distrust of gambling and the ill-founded belief that casinos spur economic development, might prompt city leaders to stick the casino in some out-of-the-way location in the South Loop or on the Near South Side.

In addition to the Michael Reese site, rebranded as the Burnham Lakefront, plausible candidates include the proposed One Central development near Soldier Field, the Lakeside Center at McCormick Place and The 78 project planned for the massive site at Roosevelt Road and Clark Street.

The developers of the Burnham Lakefront and The 78 voiced no enthusiasm for a casino when I broached the subject. Bob Dunn, who is lining up billions of dollars in public financing for One Central, has built sports venues elsewhere. For him, a casino seems like no great leap.

But I think any of these locations would be a mistake. A casino on the South Side almost certainly would be an island-type facility. The Michael Reese site, among other drawbacks, is separated from downtown by the Stevenson Expressway. The benefit to the surrounding area would be zero.

An island casino might retard redevelopment, suggesting the neighborhood is a dumping ground for uses nobody else wants.

A downtown location would require skillful planning and execution but have greater potential upside. It would check most of the boxes Klebanow and Gallaway cite as “critical success factors for the modern urban casino” — among them a pedestrian-friendly environment, proximity to an existing entertainment/dining district and good transit and highway access.

Why not Navy Pier?

A drawback of the Loop is the lack of a suitable site. Klebanow and Gallaway note that modern casinos require a large floor plate, which would be hard to come by.

So Klebanow is partial to Navy Pier, which is easy to imagine as a casino. It’s already a leading tourist attraction. And it offers lots to do besides gamble. For sheer entertainment value, it’d compare favorably with any Las Vegas venue.

Navy Pier also has disadvantages. Lake Shore Drive separates it from the rest of the city. There’s not much of a street scene in neighboring parts of Streeterville.

Navy Pier also lacks high-capacity transit access, which means traffic congestion — already a problem — would only get worse. A casino operator probably would want more parking. Where you’d put that, I don’t know. Streeterville’s well-connected residents likely would object.

Big Jim might be a smart bet

So maybe the Loop is worth another look. I know of a dilapidated but architecturally significant Loop building that might make a good casino — perhaps a spectacular one. The structure, whose owner is looking to unload it, is in a busy pedestrian area near theaters, shops and transit. And it fills an entire block.

You’ve probably heard of it. It’s called the James R. Thompson Center.

Just a thought.

This is part of the series City at the Crossroads by journalist Ed Zotti, who takes an in-depth look at trends affecting Chicago and critical choices the city faces.

Email comments to: letters@suntimes.com.