PHILADELPHIA -- At a 22-acre site along the Delaware River where a sugar refinery used to stand, several bulldozers were pushing dirt around and digging into the earth last week to remove the concrete remains of the old Jack Frost plant.

The site, close to two city neighborhoods, Fishtown and Northern Liberties, is where Neil Bluhm and his partners have been trying since December 2006 to build a glitzy $700 million casino called Sugar House. Two lonely billboards read "Sugar House -- Pure Fun." The casino would start with 3,000 slot machines and produce millions of dollars to reduce property taxes around the state.

Just three miles to the south, also along the Delaware, is a 16-acre site where a second casino awarded to Philadelphia, a $1 billion venture called Foxwoods, would go. But no work at all is going on at that site in south Philadelphia.

The lack of progress at the two would-be Philadelphia casinos has angered a number of state legislators in Harrisburg, because the longer the gambling parlors take to open and begin producing gaming tax revenue for the state, the longer property taxpayers around Pennsylvania will be denied serious tax relief.

"I am getting more frustrated with every week that goes by. It's ridiculous," said Sen. Jane Earll, R-Erie, who heads the Senate committee that oversees gambling and whose district includes the Presque Isle Downs racetrack/casino.

"Philadelphia is getting wage tax [reduction] money and economic development money from gaming revenue from the seven operating casinos, but it's not contributing anything. That's unfair to the rest of the state."

So far, only seven of the 14 casinos authorized by the state's 2004 slots law have opened; two new casinos, in Pittsburgh and Bethlehem, will open this year.

In 2008, the first year that enough gaming revenue had been generated to begin cutting property taxes for state homeowners -- the average reduction was only $193 per homeowner.

Gov. Ed Rendell, a big backer of casinos, has predicted that well over $1 billion per year in gaming revenue will be produced once all 14 casinos are open. Average property tax cuts could be $500 or more, but that goal is still far off.

Mr. Rendell last week said he was "disappointed" that things are moving so slowly in the city where he was mayor in the 1990s. "I am hopeful we can get some action soon," he said.

State Rep. Dante Santoni, D-Berks, said "We want the Philadelphia sites to be up and running as soon as possible. The Legislature is losing patience. We want money generated for state coffers and property tax reduction."

Ms. Earll has a bill, Senate Bill 200, to penalize Philly financially -- by delaying some of the gaming revenue it now gets under the 2004 law -- until the two casinos are operating. A similar bill is expected to be announced in the House this week.

"This legislation to penalize Philadelphia is getting some momentum," Mr. Santoni said.

"I share the frustration of legislators, so let's get moving on this," agreed Rep. Tim Solobay, D-Washington County, whose district includes The Meadows racetrack/casino.

Sugar House's Bluhm is a major investor in another Pennsylvania casino -- the new Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh, which is set to open in August. He's lucky that he didn't place all his bets on Philadelphia, because Sugar House could still be months, or even a couple years, from opening.

"I think we have another two to three years of litigation over Sugar House," said Democratic state Rep. Michael O'Brien, who lives in Fishtown and strongly opposes casinos along the river.

Leigh Whitaker, a Sugar House spokeswoman, conceded that things haven't gone as quickly as she would like, and the project still needs a dozen permits from the city and the Army Corps of Engineers.

"The city has been less than cooperative with us," she said, but still insisted Sugar House could be under construction as soon as June, if the permits are issued quickly. Casino developers have asked the state Supreme Court to appoint a "special master" judge, who would speed things through the legal process. Ms. Whitaker said many local residents support the casino and the 1,100 jobs it will bring.

Mr. O'Brien thinks he can tie the permitting process up in court for a long time yet. "We have folks living within 200 feet of the Sugar House site and within 500 feet of the Foxwoods riverfront site, and a casino would greatly impact their quality of life," he said.

Another avowed opponent is Jethro Heiko, a Fishtown resident who heads Casino-Free Philadelphia, which formed in mid-2006 when talk of city casinos first began. The two Philadelphia casinos were licensed by the state gaming board in December 2006.

He said Casino-Free Philadelphia started out ago with "reasonable requests," such as not allowing any casinos within 1,500 feet of homes, schools and places of worship. They collected 27,000 signatures on petitions to vote on it, but the state Supreme Court vetoed a referendum. Now Mr. Heiko is opposing casinos anywhere in the city, calling them "predatory." He said he's willing to stand in front of construction equipment if work on casinos starts.

Sugar House is being slowed by a need for a dozen permits for foundation work, utility relocation and Army Corps of Engineers approval to build out into the riverbed.

The situation with Foxwoods is being complicated by the fact that two alternate sites in Center City are being explored to replace the original riverfront site.

Mr. O'Brien doesn't want casinos along the river, but could accept either of the two alternate locations for Foxwoods. One is on the third floor of an intown mall called The Gallery at 11th and Market streets, just south of City Hall, or a former Strawbridge & Clothier department store at 8th and Market.

But those sites have problems of their own. The state Gaming Control Board, in December 2006, licensed Foxwoods only for the riverfront site, and additional hearings would be needed for Foxwoods to get the state's blessing to move to Center City.

Also, the two alternative locations are within a couple blocks of this city's busy Chinatown, and Helen Gym, a board member of Asian Americans United, said her group strongly opposes a casino, which would bring too much traffic and congestion to Chinatown shops and residences.

Also, she said, "Statistics show that Asian Americans and Asian immigrants have an unusually high percentage of problem gambling," and the nearness of a casino will just exacerbate that.

There is a lot of irony in the lack of progress on Philly casinos. When state officials were pushing in 2004 to legalize slots, three of the biggest cheerleaders were Philadelphians -- Mr. Rendell, along with then-Sen. Vincent Fumo, who wrote much of the slots bill, and then-House Speaker John Perzel. They were tired of seeing thousands of southeastern Pennsylvanians making the short drive to the boardwalk casinos in Atlantic City.

Now Ms. Earll wants to hit Philadelphia officials in the pocketbook, hoping that will spur them to action. To date the city has gotten almost $90 million in state gaming tax revenue to lower its 4 percent city wage tax. The other 66 counties in Pennsylvania are using slots tax revenue to lower property taxes.

In addition, Philadelphia has gotten $8 million from another pot of state gaming revenue, for economic development. That's the pot that's helping finance construction of Pittsburgh's new hockey arena. Philadelphia is using its money to expand its convention center.

Ms. Earll said her effort to penalize Philadelphia is not part of any anti-Philadelphia prejudice, which sometimes pops up in the Legislature, fueled among legislators from other parts of the state who believe Philly gets more than its fair share of state revenue.

"God knows how long the process of building the casinos will take," she said. "Philadelphia is reaping the benefits of casinos but not contributing anything."