OXFORD — Work at the site of the $60 million casino has picked up, with workers from Sargent Corp. and Everett Excavation reshaping the land from Route 26 to the edge of the forest.
On Tuesday, workers were digging a storm water pond and readying a pad of compressed fill that will be the site of the casino building and the parking lot. There were more than a dozen workers on the site operating bulldozers, excavators and dump trucks.
“This is the real deal,” said Scott Smith, community development director for Black Bear Development. “These are real jobs,” he said, gesturing to workers on the site.
Smith said that in addition to the construction work, the casino project is supporting more than 120 jobs between architects, attorneys, inspectors and other specialists.
“It’s giving a little hope to people in Western Maine.” Still, he said, he receives 10-15 new names per day of people looking for casino jobs. He said he’s looking forward to holding job fairs.
Oxford Selectman Roger Jackson agreed. “Finally, things are moving,” he said after pulling up to the site Tuesday. Jackson, a longtime supporter of the project, said he’d gauged frustration from some residents as the site sat quiet in recent months.
The casino is set to open next spring. The first phase will include a gaming floor, restaurant and lounge.
Site work not related to groundwater testing halted in June while the Maine Board of Environmental Protection ordered Black Bear to prove the investors possessed the financial capacity to see the project through.
Last month, the investors came through on that requirement in the form of a letter from KeyBank, assuring the board that the members of Black Bear had the estimated $60 million needed to complete the first phase of the project.
The site has two production wells and three monitoring wells as an engineer from Main-Land Development works to obtain water level data to meet a Board of Environmental Protection deadline. Black Bear has about six weeks to submit the information to the board.
Smith said the water work is on schedule, and that the data would be submitted as soon as possible. In the meantime, the town is planning to install a water line up Pigeon Hill to the casino site, where Black Bear has agreed to let the town build a 500,000-gallon water reserve tank.
According to Smith, the developers haven’t decided whether to use well water or connect to the public source. “We’re doing both paths,” he said.
Oxford Town Manager Michael Chammings is still going over engineering estimates for the job and is working on paperwork to apply for tax incremented financing for the project. Chammings said approving the TIF will require another special town meeting in the future.
If approved, the TIF money wouldn’t come in until next year. In the meantime, the town plans to use a $500,000 gift from Black Bear and a $1,000,000 loan from Black Bear investor Bob Bahre to complete the work.
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