Foxwoods to detail zip line, 'other new developments' next week
Mashantucket — Foxwoods Resort Casino officials plan to announce details of the casino’s “HighFlyer” zip line and “other new developments” during a charity event next week in Boston.
Felix Rappaport, the casino's president and chief executive officer, and Rodney Butler, chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, which owns Foxwoods, will make the announcement Friday during the Tom Brady Football Challenge at Harvard Stadium. They’ll be joined by Brady, the New England Patriots quarterback, “to help announce the initial phase of a significant, unparalleled new development this summer at Foxwoods,” according to a news release.
Best Buddies International, the nonprofit organization behind the event, put out the release. A Foxwoods spokeswoman confirmed that the announcement involves the zip line but declined to say what else.
Rappaport first revealed more than a year ago that Foxwoods was planning to extend a zip line from the roof of the casino's 350-foot Fox Tower down to the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center. Riders suspended from the line in harnesses will reach speeds up to 60 mph as they travel along the 3,700-foot run, Rappaport has said.
Redwood Parks Co. of Redding, Calif., was hired to develop the zip line.
Foxwoods officials participated in the same event last year, presenting Best Buddies with a $75,000 donation and announcing, during Brady’s football game, that the casino planned to open four new celebrity-themed restaurants. Two of them — Guy Fieri’s Kitchen + Bar and Sugar Factory American Brasserie — have opened. Cat Cora’s Wine Bar and Richard Rawlings’ Garage have yet to open.
In addition to Brady’s football game, next week’s two-day Best Buddies benefit will include Saturday’s challenge — a walk, run and ride from Boston to Hyannis Port — and Guy Fieri’s food and wine festival. Brady, Fieri and U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III of Massachusetts are honorary co-chairmen of the event.
Best Buddies, founded in 1989 by Anthony Shriver, seeks to create opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
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