Wendy Hamilton addressed the crowd gathered in the parking lot of her casino on a hot summer morning. The general manager of SugarHouse called the gathering the second largest announcement to come to Philadelphia this year, falling short only to the upcoming Papal visit. Hamilton pointed out to everyone, however, that her event would be taking fences down rather than putting them up.

On August 13th, SugarHouse Casino celebrated the placement of the final beam of the gaming hub’s $164 million expansion project. To commemorate the milestone, a “Topping-Off Ceremony” was held at the foot of the newly erected building. The expansion is scheduled to open by the year’s end and will bring 500 new full-time jobs, a larger gaming facility, several restaurants and a multipurpose event center to the waterfront casino.

The “freaking awesome” expansion, as Hamilton put it, “provides some much needed elbow room on a gaming floor that we have successfully outgrown.” When SugarHouse Casino opened in September 2010, it was designed and constructed as an interim facility, with future plans for a larger, full-service gaming and entertainment complex. In October 2013, SugarHouse launched a $6 million project to “refresh” their property, which included new carpets, restrooms, ceilings and a VIP lounge. The current expansion project broke ground last summer and the general manager has described the time since as “a fast 13 months.”

The new construction increases SugarHouse’s 108,000 square-foot facility to approximately 260,000 square feet, not including the new seven-story parking garage of roughly 600,000 square feet which will offer 1,500 spaces, increasing the total parking to 2,440 spaces. The larger gaming areas will include 44 additional table games, 289 new slots and a 28-table poker room as well as a multipurpose event center and various entertainment possibilities.

“We’re adding a bounty of non-gaming amenities, including several new restaurants, featuring among them a nationally renowned high-end dining concept that… shhh, we’ll announced in September,” Hamilton said.

Celebrating with Hamilton was Greg Carlin, CEO of Rush Street Gaming, State Senator Larry Farnese, Philadelphia City Councilman Mark Squilla, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Director of Commerce for the City of Philadelphia Alan Greenberger, and Rich Levins, vice chairman of the Penn Treaty Special Services District.

Carlin, who is the head of the parent company that owns SugarHouse, praised Hamilton and her team for helping make their business “Philly’s Casino.” According to Carlin, the new expansion will allow the the casino to further set itself apart in a competitive and crowded market where regional gaming has expanded across the country in the past decade. The gaming exec applauded SugarHouse for excelling as a place of work, for being a contributing member of the community and for being an economic engine to the city and region.

The new expansion will bring an additional 500 new, full-time jobs to SugarHouse. The casino currently employs approximately 1,100 people and for four consecutive years has been voted a “Best Place to Work” in the Philadelphia Business Journal and a “Top Workplace” from Philly.com four years in a row. The construction of the expansion brought additional labor jobs to the region. Joe Ski, a construction worker who lives in nearby Port Richmond, was working on piledriving the foundations in the project.

“It was a tough job,” Ski said, “but it was really safe. They ran a really safe operation here.”

The $164 million SugarHouse expansion was designed by Cope Linder Architects; with construction management by Skanska USA Building, Inc. and development management by Keating Consulting, LLC. Hamilton gave a shout out to the construction team in her opening remarks.

“Our construction team has been phenomenal,” Hamilton said. “On behalf of the entire SugarHouse family, thank you to the men and women who have been building this terrific new building each and every day since last summer.”

While providing jobs to region, the casino also directly gives back to the community through the Penn Treaty Special Services District. The PTSSD is a nonprofit organization formed by volunteers from Fishtown, Northern Liberties, Olde Richmond and South Kensington. Using money from the SugarHouse Casino outlined in the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), the PTSSD awards grants to community organizations with the intent on making improvements in the neighborhoods falling in the Special Services District. The amount of money that the PTSSD receives is set to increase from $500,000 to $1 million now that the SugarHouse expansion is nearing its completion. In fact, the jump in contribution is coming earlier than expected.

“Under the CBA, SugarHouse was not obligated to give us any additional monies until the year following the completion of this [expansion] project,” Rich Levins, vice chairman of the PTSSD and Fishtown resident, said. “However, last month they announced that they were going to start funding us in advance of the requirement. We’re going to get that money in September or October.”

As the casino has committed to giving back to the community, it has also not brought any additional crime to the area. SugarHouse opened in September 2010 following protests from community members who feared that the casino would lead to an increase in neighborhood crime. However, a 2014 study by researchers at Drexel University and Temple University shows that wasn’t the case.

According to the study, crime rates in Fishtown were largely unaffected by the introduction of the gaming establishment. Lallen T. Johnson, PhD, an assistant professor of criminal justice in Drexel University’s College of Arts and Sciences, and Jerry H. Ratcliffe, PhD, a professor and chair of the Department of Criminal Justice at Temple University, used geolocated crime data to examine changes in crime volume in the immediate neighborhood of the casino since its opening. The researchers found that any potential significant crime increases either did not occur or were effectively controlled by a reassignment of existing local police officers.

Captain George Kappe is the commanding officer of the Philadelphia Police Department’s 26th District. His district, which includes areas of Fishtown and Northern Liberties, is in charge of patrolling the areas surrounding SugarHouse.

“There hasn’t been a significant increase or decrease in crime,” Kappe said. “It’s negligible either way. Having the casino has had no negative impact on the Fishtown area, Northern Liberties, and so-on. [SugarHouse is] a great business partner to have here in the area — the new construction and the number of jobs going to community folks speaks for itself.”

When asked if the 26th has gone through any specific measures to help keep crime rates down in the casino’s vicinity, Kappe told The Spirit, “We’re doing the same thing we’ve always done. We have a really good rapport with the casino. Our officers are constantly checking in with [the casino] and communicating back and forth. The casino doesn’t hesitate to give us a call whenever they have an issue.”

Greg Carlin, CEO of Rush Street Gaming, also recognized the Nutter administration and members of City Council for what he called a focus on Philly’s neighborhoods that has had a huge impact all over the city.

“If you look at Fishtown, it’s had an incredible renaissance over the past few years,” Carlin said. “It’s really amazing what’s going on in this neighborhood. From La Colombe’s new flagship store…to the new concert venue across the street, the Fillmore… Philadelphia Distilleries announced it’s going to be moving to Fishtown this Fall. It’s really been a transformation in this neighborhood and we’re really excited to be part of that and also to contribute to that as well.”

City Councilman Mark Squilla, whose district stretches from the Naval Yard up the Delaware River into Fishtown before snaking into Frankford above Lehigh Avenue, has played a major role in the development of his district. While SugarHouse’s construction and continued development is a large, high-profile construction project, Squilla pointed out that there’s a lot of growth happening in his district.

“Continued development throughout the entire waterfront is really important,” Squilla said. “We have great private development coming to Festival Pier, the Live Nation venue across the street, the bowling alley and the distillery. We also have a lot of interest in the area north of here because of the vision that’s being put into action down here.”

Squilla believes that within the next five years the waterfront is going to be place with an “activated river,” that will provide countless attractions and activities to residents of his district, old and new.

At the ceremony’s conclusion, the expansion’s final beam was hoisted into the air by a crane and placed atop the lantern, which marks the highest elevation point of the expanded casino building. An evergreen tree, which is a long-standing construction tradition symbolizing a safe construction site during the building process, was attached to that final beam and raised along with an American flag and a banner signed by SugarHouse executives, employees, and construction workers.