Sen. Dave Marsden plans to file a casino referendum bill in late 2024, giving Fairfax residents a chance to vote on a casino.
Posted Tue, Nov 12, 2024 at 1:53 pm ET|Updated Wed, Nov 13, 2024 at 2:13 pm ET
RICHMOND, VA — The Tysons casino referendum bill that was held over to the 2025 session of the Virginia General Assembly will die on Monday, but that doesn’t mean the bill in some form or other won’t reappear in January.
If approved by the Virginia General Assembly and signed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, the planned bill would give the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors the authority to put a casino referendum on an upcoming ballot.
In February 2024, the Senate Committee on Finance and Appropriations voted 13-2 to hold over Virginia Sen. Dave Marsden’s (D-Burke) Senate Bill 675 to the next legislative session, which begins Jan. 8.
SB675’s death is strictly a procedural matter. Technically, the appropriations committee has a Nov. 18 deadline to carry over the bill to the 2025 legislative session, but that’s not likely to happen, according to the bill’s sponsor.
Marsden told Patch on Tuesday that he still plans to introduce a casino referendum bill in some form in 2025. What that will be depends on polling he said is taking place.
In September, Marsden said proponents of the bill had used focus groups to inform questions for a planned phone survey. But, he said on Tuesday that it was decided to postpone the phone survey until after the Nov. 5 general election.
Since the proposed referendum came to light, local lawmakers have joined residents of Reston, Tysons and McLean in strong opposition to the project.
Language in the bill specifying that the casino be built outside the Beltway, along the Silver Line and within two miles of a regional enclosed mall, supports Marsden’s assertion that the casino would be built in Tysons.
This was the third time Marsden has submitted a bill seeking to put a casino somewhere on Metro’s Silver Line outside the Capital Beltway. In 2023, he and Del. Wren Williams (R-Stuart) introduced and quickly withdrew casino legislation in both houses of the general assembly, after receiving strong opposition from the community. The bill Marsden filed last January made it to the Senate Committee on Finance and Appropriations, where it was held over to the 2025 session on a 13-2 vote.
Casino advocates have said the project would diversify the county’s revenue stream and create 5,000 union jobs, as well as bring more workforce housing to the Tysons area.
The proposed project would include a 4 million-square-foot entertainment district in Tysons that would feature a high-end hotel with gaming floor, convention center, concert venue, restaurants, retail, and workforce housing. In addition, 200,000 square feet of the district would be dedicated to a casino.
Last week, Churchill Downs had ribbon-cutting ceremony for the newly opened Rose Gaming Resort that was built on the Prince William County landfill off of I-95. The resort includes a 50,000-square-foot gaming floor with 1,650 historical horse racing machines, eight restaurants and bars, over 100 hotel rooms, live entertainment, 2,500 parking spaces and a seven-acre public park.
The Rose is expected to bring an estimated $11 million in annual tax revenue to the Town of Dumfries and $6.7 million to Prince William County. Already, the development has created 500 jobs for the community of 6,000 residents.
The Tysons casino, as proposed, would include a gaming floor four times the size of The Rose and would be built in what Sol Glasner, president and CEO of the Tysons Partnership, in 2020 called “the economic engine for the county,” rather than a mountain of garbage in Prince William County.
Patch first reported in 2023 that Comstock Holding Companies, the Reston-based developer, was seeking to build a casino somewhere on the Silver Line. The company and its allies have spent more than $2 million on campaign contributions to local and general assembly candidates to advance the casino referendum bill.
“Unlike other jurisdictions that received the authority to hold a referendum to host a casino, Fairfax County did not seek such authority and has not been substantively involved in the development of the casino concept envisioned by stakeholders and the patron of the legislation,” Fairfax County Board Chair Jeff McKay wrote in a letter to Virginia’s legislative leaders in January.
“It likely comes as no surprise to you that the location and concept included in the legislation and reported in the media has generated significant community concern and opposition.”
McKay went on to say that since no community engagement was conducted in the planning of the referendum before Marsden introduced the legislation, he and the board of supervisors believe that the bill in its current form would encounter strong community opposition to any future referendum.
“Since we put in place the Tysons Plan, we have seen extraordinary job growth in Tysons,” Supervisor Jimmy Bierman (D-Dranesville) said at No Fairfax Casino’s community forum last month at McLean High School. “We have seen mixed-use development in Tysons. We have seen huge companies come and relocate in Tysons.”
Not only would a casino undermine the goals of the Tysons Comprehensive Plan, according to Bierman, it would more likely make the area less attractive to the business community.
“There are lots of opportunities for us to continue job growth in Tysons, and I’ll continue to support that type of development,” Bierman said. “If some of those companies decide they don’t actually want to be located in Tysons anymore, that’s going to hurt us.”