Springfield sues MGM over host community agreement

The City of Springfield is filing a lawsuit against MGM Resorts International. 22 News Reporter Lexi White has been following this developing news. Lexi, what updates are you seeing today? CRN Christina, MGM is sharing a statement in regards to the situation and city officials are issuing their own responses to that. The City of Springfield is filing a lawsuit against MGM Resorts International and Blue Tarp Redevelopment. Allegedly after, MGM failed to comply with the host community agreement. Now, MGM is sharing their response. According to the statement, MGM is calling the litigation frivolous. They say they notified the city of their proposed sale of the Springfield location and provided the city with information of a potential buyer. MGM spokespeople say that the mayor and the city wanted to turn the 101 State Street location into a hotel. Now, MGM spokespeople say that they don't think Springfield officials were acting in good faith when having this preference. On the other hand, city officials say they had a meeting with MGM regarding this and it went a little differently. They brought in some ideas. We made some recommendations on the ideas that we preferred and then we expected some movement out of that. And again, no activity at 101 State except for talk. City officials say the biggest issue is the vacant 101 State Street building lined with scaffolding and Jersey barriers. They would not have that in any of their properties across the country or the world. But yet, Springfield has to suffer through that? No. The statement also says in regards to renovating the 101 State Street building, city officials failed to move the conversation forward. We didn't stop the conversation. MGM stopped the conversation. We're more than willing to talk and continue to talk. We know that MGM is a valuable asset to the city of Springfield, but our patience has expired as well. If they want to come back to the table and have any conversations with us, we're always open to that. Now, city officials are requesting for a court meeting as soon as possible and asking the court to put a stop to the arbitration process. Springfield officials say they want this meeting to happen so they can help people understand what's happening in their community. Working for you, Lexi White, 22 News.