The Fountainhead and the Beasts Opposing Gambling

The Fountainhead

Bruce Thompson, The Donald Trump of Virginia Beach, is a gambling man.

Bruce's Building? Thompson Tower?

Word has it that he has submitted three proposals to the city of Norfolk to build a hotel and conference center on The Plot spot.

I suspect, considering the debate over casinos and riverboat gambling in the General Assembly right now, that Thompson is playing the odds.

The casino bills, introduced by Sen. Louise Lucas, have faded away. But the bill to introduce riverboat gambling is still alive.

If the riverboat gambling bill passes and is signed into law, Thompson will announce publicly (Or let Mayor Paul Fraim do it during hizzoner’s state of the city speech) that he’s planning to build a hotel and conference center in Norfolk.

He knows gambling is an adrenalin rush for people. Just like sex. 

If the bill doesn’t pass, Thompson will withdraw his plans.

No harm, no foul.   

The Plot spot where the Westin hotel and Conference Center was planned has been an eyesore for eight years.

In preparing The Plot spot, Norfolk spent $16 million to buy buildings and land, relocation and demolition, fees for consultants and architects and interest on loans to prepare the 2.3 acre site for the hotel, parking garage and conference center.

Magnanimous as usual, the city offered to pay for a $50 million convention center, a $16 million parking garage, topped off with $7.5 million in tax rebates and $750,000 for an upscale restaurant.

That’s on top of the $16 million the city has spent so far.

So, Mr. Thompson, how much do you want?

Norfolk is open for business.

Publishers note: Distinctions magazine ran an article on Thompson, one of many exalting his ambition and success. The article opens with a photograph of Thompson seemingly walking on water.

Find the Beasts Lurking Behind the Spin Opposing Gambling Opposition to Sen. Louise Lucas’ attempts to get bills passed to permit casino gambling in Norfolk and Portsmouth smells of spin and masks the machinations behind public-private partnerships in Virginia.

"I just think there is sort of a corrosive effect that comes with casino gambling," said Sen. Richard Black, a Republican from Loudoun County who voted against Lucas’ measures.

"I worry about the social implications of it," he said.

Gambling foes

What would I do without Mr. Black, a Republican and Pilgrim patrician, telling me where, when and how to spend my money?  

Tell that to the thousands of Virginians who buy lottery tickets every week and swell the state’s coffers.

His remarks are disingenuous, since the state of Virginia runs its own gambling operation, the Virginia lottery.

Which leads me to…  

After hearing objections from the McDonnell administration, two Northern Virginia chambers of commerce and Transurban Group, a private toll road owner and operator, the panel tabled the bill, meaning it is unlikely to advance, a Virginian-Pilot article said.

Transurban…

This company is like a virus for which no antidote exists.

They have infected the halls and highways of Virginia.

Gov. Bob likes Transurban.

He gave a 73-year concession to Transurban and Fluor, a multi-national construction company, valued at $843 million, to develop 29 miles of toll car, truck and bus express lanes on I-95 in northern Virginia. 

Transurban is also a microbe in the development of a new Route 460, valued at $1.5 billion, between Suffolk and Petersburg.

And a Transurban employee sits on the Virginia Port Authority’s 11-member board of commissioners and is extremely involved in the partition of the port under privatization.

Of course, Transurban opposes gambling to pay for road and bridge projects.

They would lose their skin, naturally.

As they are doing now on the concession for the Pocahontas Parkway, which they are trying to sell.