Wynn Resorts To Unveil Redesign Of Everett Casino

Wynn Resorts is planning to unveil a new design for its planned casino in Everett.

The Las Vegas casino company is scheduled to present the new design to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission at its regular meeting Thursday.

Wynn has proposed a $1.6 billion resort, casino, hotel and entertainment complex for roughly 33 acres on the Everett waterfront overlooking Boston. But the gaming commission, in awarding Wynn the Boston region's sole casino license, deemed the casino's proposed 27-story hotel tower too generic.

It asked Wynn to redesign the tower as a condition of awarding it the license, which is considered the most potentially lucrative of the four gambling licenses state regulators are authorized to give out.

Steve Wynn, in a rare appearance in Boston on Jan. 15, told local real estate industry leaders that the revised proposal would echo the "grand hotels" of the past, offering the largest hotel rooms outside of Las Vegas and other luxury amenities.

He described a lobby with two large indoor gardens, each encompassing about 2,000 square feet. The gardens, Wynn said, would house massive flower sculptures - a carousel and a 26-foot-tall Ferris wheel, for example. And at the center of the lobby would be a 2,000-pound sculpture of Popeye made by artist Jeff Koons.

"All this stuff sounds like fun, doesn't it?" Wynn said.

The casino plan, as approved by regulators in September, had called for 500 hotel rooms; 3,000 square feet of meeting and convention space; 94,000 square feet for shopping and retail; about eight restaurants; and 3,000 slot machines and 150 table games.

Wynn, at the time, said the development would provide about 3,700 temporary jobs during construction and about 4,380 permanent jobs. The company hopes to open the resort in 2017.