Twin River team numbers 25 at Tiverton High School; audience totals 35

TIVERTON — Twin River Casino put on a highly-produced charette Thursday night, Sept. 10 in the Tiverton High School Auditorium, and another there on Saturday afternoon, Sept. 12.

The third and final such event last will be held Tuesday, Sept. 22, at 6:30 p.m.,  also in the high school auditorium.

At the first charrette on Sept. 10, two giant screens flanked the stage with a table between them, occupied at the outset by council members, who convened the workshop, but who left to allow Twin River staff and consultants to take over on stage.

On the auditorium floor, in front of the stage, was a bank of sound equipment (mixers, computers, amplifiers) manned by five or six staff. At intervals along the wall and at the rear of the auditorium were large fans that circulated air in the sultry auditorium. Hand held microphones were at the ready for audience members.

Outside the main entrance was a hospitality table, loaded with bottles of water.

About 35 members of the public were in attendance in the auditorium. It was raining lightly outside, and was the night of the Patriots’ season-opening game against Pittsburgh.

Each person attending had been given by Twin River staff an electronic clicker that they were asked to use to indicate preferences, or to respond to questions posed on the screens.

Overall, there were about 25 Twin River staff on duty. Headed by chairman of Twin River Management Group John E. Taylor Jr., the assemblage included architects, engineers and traffic experts, environmental consultants, an urban planner, a program facilitator, and sound technicians.

"The sound system is much better than anything we've ever worked with here," said Council President Denise deMedeiros, as she called the meeting to order before turning things over to program facilitator Daphne Politis and Mr. Taylor.

"Tonight is a continuation of a conversation with the community," Mr. Taylor began.

The concept is a "convenience casino," a place he said would be about 25 percent the size of the Lincoln casino, and that he'd said on previous occasions was a place "where people come for a couple of hours and leave."

The proposed casino would have about 1,100 slot machines and two dozen table games, and would occupy 45 acres about 400 feet from the border with Fall River.

The site "is as close to a jungle now as you will get in Rhode island," Scott Rabideau, a Twin River environmental consultant told the audience.

The hotel

A hotel with 80-85 rooms, that would be two or three stories tall, was proposed by Twin River presenters. While the casino would be approximately 75,000 square feet, the hotel would be 60,000 square feet they said.

When it came time to ask audience members to "click" their sentiments — about how they would feel about a "small" hotel on the premises — 12 of the 33 people responding said they would "strongly agree."

The rest scatttered their responses between strongly agree (9), doesn't matter (4), disagree (2) and strongly disagree (6).

The hotel possibility is a recent addition to the Twin River plan.

The Newport Grand, recently purchased by Twin River, and whose license and operations Twin River proposes to move to Tiverton, does not have a hotel.

Twin River said at the charette that it had done helium balloon testing to determine visibility of the casino and hotel site from nearby roads.

"The casino is so far off the roadways you probably cannot see it," said a Twin River spokesperson.

Asked about a "sit-down restaurant," a bar, some combination of take away food at the location, and live entertainment at the bar on weekends, about half to a third of the 30 to 34 people attending said they would like it, while the rest were lukewarm. Only a handful were strongly opposed.

When he was asked at a neighborhood gathering at L'il Bear on July 8, whether the proposed casino would provide entertainment, Mr. Taylor said, "one thing we know won't happen is an entertainment center. We don't have the space for that."

"The hotel has been a question mark from the beginning," said Twin River spokeswoman Patti Doyle in an e-mail after the charette. "We've talked about it at all of our neighborhood gatherings and at the initial council presentation. But it's always been talked about as an amenity to be considered only if town residents are in favor of it. That's still the case. Nothing definite about it at all."

Traffic

A Hurst Lane resident said, “I can't understand the traffic. We'll never get out of Hurst Lane."

A representative from Twin River had said access to the casino would be directly opposite the point where Hurst Lane intersects with Stafford Road/William Canning Boulevard.

"Based on what we know today," said a spokeman for Twin River, "we believe there is a solution for the traffic problem: a roundabout."

Whereupon Twin River technicians projected an animated video on the two on-stage screens of a roundabout at the intersection, showing the flow of vehicles into and through the location.