Rithmetic
The math skills of the customers may be sketchy, but the calculations of the casino industry in Iowa are anything but. It’s a $1 billion annual industry, employing more than 9,000 people and generating $384 million in taxes on a voluntary for most, but addictive for some, activity. A handful of experts make very comfortable livings pinpointing the exact location to maximize the rake.
In this market, it’s the intersection of I-74 and I-80. Within 2.5 miles of I-280 as it runs north / south in the Quad Cities, there are 15,238 folks with an aggregate annual income of $322 million. Within 2.5 miles of I-74 as it runs north / south in the Quad Cities, there are 108,935 people with an aggregate annual income of $3.2 billion. Billions vs. millions. Billions wins.
The highest and best zoning use ball gets dropped in the lap of the City Council. They make the best of it, dedicating a million of the $5 million expected each year for fifteen years to the extension of Elmore Drive designed to take the brunt of traffic. The $12.5 million Elmore extension adds to the $32.5 million Veterans Parkway project to total $45 million to keep commercial traffic off of residential streets. Its serious money, devoted to serious economic development. The Council adds in another million in quality of life improvements for northeast Davenport neighborhoods to minimize the impact of the commercial development at the intersection of I-74 and I-80.
Forty six million dollars is no small amount. It happens to be the same amount the City Council established in 2011 as the base amount to break the Isle of Capri’s Scott County monopoly with a purchase of the Rhythm City casino. Had Davenport been allowed to join Dubuque and Polk County as a community that holds its gaming license wholly in the community trust, the initial investment could have been paid off in as little as three years after opening the new casino, and property taxes could have then been cut by as much as 25%, depending on how much gaming revenue was directed to road maintenance and improvements all across Davenport. Forty six million is no small amount, but it would have been dwarfed by hundreds of millions in community improvements and property tax reductions by the time the bonds to pay for the Elmore extension are retired. That’s the simple math. It’s as irrefutable as the traffic counts on I-74, and as certain as losing at blackjack by hitting on twenty.
The casino industry is all math, and the math that fundamentally defines the industry in every state are the campaign contributions which protect the industry from threats real and imagined. Adding Davenport to Polk County and Dubuque as a casino operating solely for community benefit would have cut into the perfectly legal campaign contributions to the folks who like things just the way they are. Change always faces long odds, but is a necessary gambit for improvement.
The second best alternative of breaking the Isle’s Scott County monopoly, beautifying the riverfront and optimizing Davenport’s principal Interstate intersection gets a 10 – 0 vote, and we move forward.
