Gambling on Traffic

Waterfront developers are betting against a very hungry house.

by Bruce Schimmel

Sammy "The Sidewalk Snatcher" Benakmoume must be feeling lucky, because the real estate developer is betting against the house. And the house hates to lose.

Recently, Benakmoume ballyhooed a deal he had inked that will bring hundreds of good jobs to the southern Delaware riverfront.

But what Sammy doesn't seem to get — or know — is that if the Foxwoods casino wins its bet and is built, Columbus Boulevard could drown in congestion, according to a new and unpublished traffic analysis.

You remember Sidewalk Sammy. Under the guise of providing wheelchair access to his new condos on South, the developer sliced off a long stretch of public sidewalk — on which he built a raised porch for al fresco dining.

What remained of the sidewalk was a rat's path, which wheelchairs still couldn't get through. Following a hue and cry [Loose Canon, "Rage Against the Wall," July 12, 2007], the city told Sammy to demo his dining porch.

Now, putting his past behind him, Sammy is trying to spur support for his giant twin-tower complex at Broad and Washington, by claiming kudos for bringing new jobs to the waterfront.

Sammy is touting a 20-year lease he's signed with Rotem USA, which will rent a 290,000-square-foot industrial building, now vacant. The subsidiary of Hyundai will build hundreds of rail cars for SEPTA and the Southern California Regional Rail Authority. The state-of-the-art plant is expected to create 300 new manufacturing jobs.

Which would be great if the new factory isn't trapped in gridlock.

The plant will be located just behind IKEA. But according to engineers familiar with a new analysis of casino traffic, commissioned by City Council, this might not be such a great location for a busy new factory.

Analysts didn't want to go on record, since discussions are still ongoing. But whether southern Columbus Boulevard will be functional is essentially a crapshoot. As one analyst put it, "You multiply a judgment with a guess and things get hairy."

Foxwoods believes that the five intersections around Exit 20 (Columbus Boulevard/Washington Avenue) off I-95 can be tweaked to handle the congestion. Though even under the rosiest scenario, pedestrians still won't be able to cross.

But the engineers' biggest fear is that the Columbus Boulevard gridlock will back up the Exit 20 ramp onto I-95. This could clog up lanes on the interstate itself, creating textbook conditions for high-speed, rear-end collisions.

One analyst called this "the gorilla in the fridge," that some innocently or willingly ignore.

When asked if Benakmoume had considered the impact of casinos on the factory, the developer suddenly became silent. Rotem VP Jack Martinson says the topic of Foxwoods and its traffic never came up in lease negotiations.

Still, Martinson said he wasn't concerned. Since Foxwoods will be north of his new factory, he figured the jam-ups wouldn't affect him.

Martinson figured wrong. To avoid the crush of Exit 20, Foxwoods engineers assume that gamblers will exit the interstate farther south, at the Walt Whitman. Some 25 percent of the casino's traffic is expected to come up Columbus Boulevard — right past the new factory.

Who cares? Casinos don't. They don't have to. Projects like the Food Distribution Center or the South Port expansion aren't even on the table. Nor should they be, insists SugarHouse spokesman Dan Fee, who argues that casinos shouldn't have to account for traffic from proposed projects.

So, builder beware. Benakmoume and others should consider casinos more carefully. Cause like it or not — know it or not — waterfront developers are betting their condos, their factories and the waterfront's future against an indifferent and very hungry house.

(bruce@schimmel.com)