Construction on the $2.4-billion Wynn Boston Harbor continues despite the resignation of Wynn Resorts CEO Stephen A. Wynn, after The Wall Street Journal reported multiple sexual harassment and assault accusations against him. Located on the Mystic River in Everett, Mass., the 3-million-sq-ft resort is the largest private single-phase construction project in the state’s history.
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission opened an investigation to determine if the regulator will strip Wynn Resorts of its casino license. “The suitability and integrity of our gaming licensees is of the utmost importance,” the commission said in a statement, “and ensuring that suitability is an active and ongoing process.” The regulator declined to elaborate on the probe, but a local news service said, in a Feb. 8 online report, that neither the company nor Wynn disclosed to investigators in 2013 the former CEO’s private payouts of more than $7.5 million to resolve sexual harassment allegations.
Set to open in June 2019, the project includes a five-star resort with 671 hotel rooms, a high-end spa, a ballroom, and retail, dining and meeting space. Also part of the project is a privately funded $30-million cleanup of the heavily contaminated 33-acre site that was once a Monsanto chemical plant. A six-acre park with a living shoreline and public areas are also planned.
A spokesman for the project’s contractor, Suffolk Construction, declined comment. Wynn Resorts appointed Matt Maddox, its current president, as CEO and Boone Wayson as non-executive chairman of the board of directors.
Wynn Resorts recently started work on Paradise Park in Las Vegas, a 47-story hotel near two other of its properties. Before the Journal story appeared, it also announced plans to build Wynn West, a Las Vegas hotel with up to 3,000 rooms, and plans to expand in Macau. In a statement on its website, Wynn Resorts said it “will continue to fully focus … on the construction of Wynn Boston Harbor.