Developing Suffolk
There have been ominous rumblings about the future of Suffolk Downs in the local press recently — an article hinting at the possibility of more commercial development on land owned by the track appeared in the Boston Globe two weeks ago and a couple of stories in the Herald have mentioned the Celtics are considering Suffolk as a site for their new arena — but nothing so alarming as what the Globe reported this morning:
“Steven Roth, the tough, entrepreneurial chief executive of giant Vornado Realty Trust, has his sights set on Boston’s Suffolk Downs. And it is a better bet than any you could place at the struggling track that the opportunity he sees is not in a bunch of old men shouting at a TV screen and betting two bucks on a race at Aqueduct.
“Suffolk Downs is a dying business, and has been for years. But make no mistake: There is value there, and the smart money is lining up.
“Vornado, a New York real estate investment trust with a market value of $9 billion, has launched a tender offer seeking to buy the shares of Suffolk Downs’s constantly warring stockholders.”
Live racing is scheduled to begin in April, and as a New England racing fan, I hope it’s not the last year. If Suffolk Downs is sold for development, it effectively means the end of the sport not just in Boston, but in the region.
