Rosemont mayor pitches casino at Rosemont Theatre

Rosemont Mayor Bradley Stephens Wednesday channeled the vision of his late father, championing a state-run casino and promoting the Rosemont Theatre as its site.

When Stephens became mayor after his father, Mayor Donald E. Stephens, died of cancer last spring, he inherited the village's long quest to land a casino.

Stephens urged the state to take his offer to buy the village-owned theater and the land behind it, which was once destined to become a water park resort, for a casino. It's an offer he says he delivered to Gov. Rod Blagojevich in person in Springfield in the past few months.

"It's sitting on the table there for them," he said.

Legislators next week are expected to review a plan to add three casinos to finance billions of dollars of construction across the state. The plan, which is given only a limited chance of passing, calls for a casino in Chicago and two additional casinos at sites to be determined later by state gaming regulators.

Stephens supported a casino at McCormick Place in Chicago, saying each facility would generate at least $600 million a year based on Elgin casino proceeds. The McCormick Place casino could benefit only the city of Chicago while Rosemont's would be a cash cow for the state, he suggested.

Under Rosemont's plan, each casino would house 2,000 gaming positions. A third casino on the city's South Side should be privately held, he said.

Blagojevich spokesman Gerardo Cardenas would neither confirm nor deny the meeting with Stephens took place, saying the governor's office has talked to "a lot of different people" about casinos.

"The decision about where and how many casinos would be part of a package that will be determined through the legislative process," Cardenas said in an e-mail.

Of the $600 million the Rosemont site would net, the village would collect $10.5 million and share $24.5 million with those communities that signed on for a revenue-sharing plan nearly 10 years ago when the Rosemont casino seemed to be a sure bet.

Stephens said the new casinos would "fire up" the Chicago convention business, which he says faces stiff competition from Las Vegas. In Rosemont, Las Vegas convention bureau workers have been spotted trying to get the attention of trade groups by using sandwich boards.

Stephens also suggests setting up a "regional convention authority" to dole out business amongst McCormick Place ("big monster shows"), Rosemont ("midrange") and Schaumburg ("ma-and-pa family shows"). Schaumburg Mayor Al Larson said he's open to talking about the idea, but opposes the idea of forcing venues to host niche conventions.

Mayor Stephens made it clear Wednesday after a village board meeting that Rosemont should host a casino. The theater, where his father's funeral was held in April, would provide a majestic casino gateway to rival any riverboat in the state, he said. The theater could still be used for shows.

"If there is no resolve to where there will be a gaming operation … in the village of Rosemont by the end of the spring session, there will never be as long as I sit in this chair," Stephens said.

Stephens, who has been mayor since May, said he sees no reason why the state shouldn't accept the village's offer. If state officials accept, he said, a casino could be running within six months at the theater off River Road across Balmoral Avenue from the rusted steel girders once destined to be a casino.

"It's not about an ultimatum. … I don't want to make the legislators think that I'm pressuring them," Stephens said. "The thought process here is that we've got a product here and that's Rosemont -- and they've got a real big shortfall of money and they should take advantage of Rosemont and our location."

Rosemont's Donald E. Stephens Convention Center last year hosted 104 trade shows and 1.4 million conventioneers.

Three years ago, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan stopped plans for a Rosemont casino in part because of concerns about alleged mob ties to the village.

Stephens said those concerns should have died with his father.

"Enough of that stuff. If there were problems with the associations that my dad had, my dad's gone," he said. "Are we happy about that? Absolutely not. I miss my father every … day."

Robyn Ziegler, spokeswoman for the attorney general's office, declined to speculate on the fate of proposals for a future casino in Rosemont, citing pending litigation stemming from the village's former casino plans.