The president of MGM Resorts is still not ruling out a possible sale of the company's casino in Springfield.
Last year, Bloomberg reported the casino giant was exploring selling MGM Springfield and its Northfield Park facility in Ohio, but the process was in the preliminary stages.
Things had been quiet publicly on this front until last week. During an earning calls, company officials were asked about possible moves to "monetize assets" and "create value" with its current portfolio.
They listed some recent transactions, which included selling off other properties. Then MGM Resorts President Bill Hornbuckle added:
"Northfield Park and Springfield are ongoing discussions, so those are assets we've been talking about for a while."
If a sale does materialize, the city, which has a host community agreement with MGM, and state gambling regulators would need to sign off on it. The state gaming commission would also need to do its due diligence on a prospective new owner before potentially granting approval.
Since opening in 2018, MGM Springfield has consistently fallen short of initial business and employment projections. Before it opened, estimates pegged the workforce to be at 3,000 employees, but it has been closer to 1,500 since the pandemic has waned. It also has been well off of revenue projections made at the same time.
Back in 2023, during a visit to Springfield, Hornbuckle said that those estimates and the valuation of the market were “simply off, full stop.”
At the time, asked about specific benchmarks MGM was looking for, Hornbuckle said he wanted the Springfield casino to "lean in more on community communications." He said the company has forecasts and budgets, but no "economic benchmark, per se."
"If there was an economic motivator of real scale, you know, in retrospect, this project would have never happened," he said.
His 2023 visit came after some Springfield leaders were calling into question MGM’s commitment to the city after some amenities were slow to open coming out of the pandemic.
And after rumors about the possible sale began to circulate last year, some elected officials said they wanted to make sure current MGM Springfield employees were taken care of, while also hoping a suitable new operator would be found to lean into the Springfield community.
A request for comment from Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno on Hornbuckle’s latest comments was not returned as of Monday afternoon.
