SEIGMA Commercial Real Estate Report
Prepared by the UMass Donahue Institute’s Economic & Public Policy Research Group
October 2021
The Social and Economic Impacts of Gambling in Massachusetts (SEIGMA) research team at UMass Amherst continues to examine the impacts of the state’s casinos on commercial real estate conditions.
The most recent report, prepared by the institute's Economic & Public Policy Research group and covering the years 2010 to 2020, describes real estate conditions in the host and surrounding communities that are home to the Commonwealth’s three casinos: Plainridge Park Casino, MGM Springfield and Encore Boston Harbor.
Overall, the findings indicate that the expansion of gambling in Massachusetts has not had a dramatic effect on the local commercial real estate markets:
- While commercial real estate conditions in the host and surrounding communities have shifted over time, many of these shifts are in line with changes observed regionally or statewide.
- The study period corresponds with a period of strong economic growth in the Commonwealth in general, and in the Greater Boston region in particular, so while there are many indicators of growth in the commercial real estate market, it is difficult to attribute many of those to the casinos.
The SEIGMA will continue its work measuring the continuing impacts of legalized gambling in Massachusetts.
