SugarHouse today unveiled design changes for its waterfront casino and said an interim facility with 1,500 slots could be up and running by this time next year. But the partners behind SugarHouse still need to borrow about USD 140 million in order to start building, Robert Sheldon, president of SugarHouse, said at a City Hall news conference.

It was one step forward, one step back for the city this week as it battles with developers for two local casinos about their controversial riverfront locations. The state Supreme Court yesterday ruled that then-Mayor Street's administration properly issued a license last year for SugarHouse to build its casino on state-owned "riparian lands" along the Delaware River. Half of SugarHouse's 22 acres in Fishtown are riparian lands.

SugarHouse Casino asked the state Supreme Court on Thursday to cut through what it called "obstructionist" political opposition in Philadelphia and allow its USD 550 million project to move ahead. In suing the administration and City Council, SugarHouse joined the city's other planned casino, Foxwoods, in forsaking the political process for the courts. Foxwoods Casino has also asked the Supreme Court to require the city to approve its project. (Virtually all issues connected with the licensing, planning and zoning of the state's nascent slots industry go directly to the highest court, by law.)

SugarHouse Casino will pay Philadelphia more than USD 67 million over the next decade to partly offset the 10-year tax break granted all new construction, City Solicitor Romulo L. Diaz Jr. said yesterday. Instead of paying no property taxes at all for a decade, SugarHouse will pay between USD 5.6 and USD 7.4 million annually over an 11-year period.