AUGUSTA – The chairman of the Maine Gambling Control Board expressed some relief Wednesday that Penn National Gaming Inc. was making an effort to make its proposed permanent gaming complex blend in with the rest of Bangor.

“There was some fear in Bangor that we were going to see a neon jungle,” Chairman George McHale said during a board meeting at the Department of Public Safety’s Augusta headquarters.

McHale’s remark followed a presentation on plans for the $90 million project by Jon Johnson, general manager of Hollywood Slots at Bangor, which last November opened an interim slots facility in the former Miller’s Restaurant on Main Street.

“We didn’t want this to look like a Vegas casino that got dropped into the middle of Maine,” Johnson said of the design concept for the company’s next phase of development in Bangor.

Penn National, Hollywood Slots’ parent company, is gearing up to build a larger, permanent facility across the street from Bass Park, home of Bangor Raceway.

Proposed are a 116,000-square-foot gaming facility housing up to 1,500 slots, a four-story parking garage for about 1,500 vehicles and seven-story hotel. Besides slots and a new simulcast facility for off-track betting, the complex will house restaurants, retail space and a lounge.

Architectural renderings of the complex, slated to open in mid-2008, show an exterior done up in shades of cream and tan and lots of glass, with a two-story, semicircular glass tower at the end of the building closest to Interstate 395, where the gambling will take place. Parking will be located on the in-town side of the property.Though board members seemed comfortable with the design concept, member Larry Hall thought employee parking could be a problem. As it stands, staff will park across Main Street from the racino, behind the Irving Mainway convenience store.

Hall, who used to own a business in Brewer, said his employees had a short walk from their parking area and that proved a problem, especially in winter, when there were several slips and falls, some leading to Workers’ Compensation claims.

“You’re asking employees to cross [Dutton and Main streets] with a lot of traffic flow,” Hall said.

Johnson agreed the situation was not optimal.

“The employee entrance was a problem, not an easily solved problem,” he said. He noted, however, that planners “didn’t have a lot of options” because the complex will occupy nearly the entire 9-acre site.

Johnson also said heated sidewalks covered with an awning would help prevent accidents and that Hollywood Slots would work with the city to time traffic lights to accommodate the flow of people from one side of Main Street to the other.

Also during the meeting, board members took steps to clarify the intent of a recent resolve.

Last month the board adopted a nonbinding resolve calling for a moratorium on any expansion of gaming in Maine until the board has amassed enough data “to assure an accurate assessment of the effect of gaming, both tangible and intangible, on the people, the social fabric, and the business infrastructure of Maine.”

The idea was to allow time to study the effects of current regulations before making substantive changes that could expand slots operations in Maine.

Johnson said he has been fielding telephone calls from legislators, supporters and patrons concerned that the moratorium request could be interpreted to apply to the permanent facility.

“For the record, could we clarify that the moratorium does not apply to the permanent gaming facility?” Johnson asked during the portion of the meeting set aside for public comment.

McHale said the resolve was “strictly nonbinding,” a point that board members made during at least two board meetings leading to their vote to adopt it.

Board member Peter Danton, who also serves on the state’s liquor and lottery commission, agreed.

“The resolution itself is a suggestion, not an ultimatum,” he said, later adding, “We can’t say where gambling is going to take place or where it’s not going to take place. It’s up to the Legislature and the citizens to vote it either in or out.”