 Sep 2009 | Tribe aims for full house After what's been a longer-than-anticipated legal battle, the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians believe nothing except for maybe a "giant meteor," according to tribe vice chair Edmund Pigeon will stand in the way of its casino project planned for land adjacent to US-131 near Bradley. The tribe says it will break ground Thursday, Sept. 17 for the Gun Lake Casino, a little more than 10 years after it received federal recognition and about nine years after first announcing plans for the gaming project. While the tribe outlasted its opponents and legal challengers, officials involved with the casino say the economy and the lengthy legal delays have forced the tribe to "roughly halve" the size of the casino and split the original project into phases. According to tribe spokesperson James Nye, the first phase will include an 83,000-square-foot, $157 million facility featuring 1,200 slot machines, 36 table games, an entertainment lounge, casino bar, 300-seat, always-open restaurant and a food court with three outlets. Nye said the Gun Lake Casino would create a projected 600 direct positions in the job-starved region, with an additional 1,000 jobs coming from various services and suppliers. The tribe expects to spend $30 million annually with local vendors. The 10-to 12-month construction cycle will create another 750 jobs. The tribe selected Skanska USA of Portage as the general contractor. Once up and running, Nye said the casino should result in 60,000 new guest stays Gun Lake Casino phase Iannually at area hotels, translating into an plans additional $4.4 million in revenues for the businesses. Under the tribe's revenue sharing games compact, the group is projected to pay about $9.1 million to the state and Entertainmentanother $2.3 million to the local revenue sharing board. "Obviously, we've wanted to build what we had planned for several years now," John L. Shagonaby, CEO of MBPI Inc., the tribe's economic development corporation, told MiBiz. "Just because of the declining economy and the credit situation, we could wait for the whole project or chop it in half and try to do it in parts. With the economy and the need to get started after needless delay, we decided to phase it…and get the economic activity sooner." A full build-out of the originally proposed casino would have taken about 18 months, and the smaller initial phase will allow the tribe to get to the market sooner – by late next summer if everything goes as planned. The tribe plans to pursue other phases of the project once the economy improves, Shagonaby said. "Eventually, we'll get to what we envisioned," he said. "The years of delay have cost the tribe and the community hundreds of millions of dollars. We always knew we'd get to this point. We just had to persevere … and stay focused." Having scheduled the groundbreaking, Shagonaby said the tribe has not secured financing for the project, but felt comfortable that it was far enough along in the negotiations to make the announcement. Nye said the smaller phase one of the project will put the tribe in a good position because it will incur less debt and have a less expensive debt payment, plus it won't be "locked into a restrictive financial agreement." "This will place the tribe in a position for strong growth," Nye said. Richard J. St. Jean, president of Native American gaming at Station Casinos Inc. of Las Vegas, said the operation features a unique in the Midwest "boutique casino" approach with high-quality finishes and services. "What people are truly looking for (is) entertainment and quality of service," St. Jean said, noting that higher entertainment value also leads to more time patrons spend on various gaming devices. The Gun Lake Casino will have "a warm, comfortable feeling" featuring soft interior colors with natural stone — as opposed to other glitzier casinos in the region. The goal, St. Jean said, was to appeal to a broad cross section of people from across the region. "It's not intimidating to the locals," St. Jean told MiBiz. "I think the residents will be very pleased with their experiences." Station Casinos has a seven-year contract with the tribe to operate the casino, but St. Jean said very few people working in the casino —except for him and a handful of people on the executive team —will come from outside the region. The company is responsible for spearheading the construction project, the grand opening, and training the tribe to potentially take over the business itself. "Over the course of time, we navigate them toward independence so that after the term of the contract, they feel confident operating their own casino," St. Jean said. Station Casinos filed for bankruptcy in July, but both Nye and St. Jean say the filing has no bearing on the management agreement between the company and the tribe. "While we can't predict the exact time frame, we are moving through this process as quickly as possible," St. Jean said. "We believe this will be months, not years." The tribe held a vendor fair for companies interested in doing business with the tribe a couple of years ago, and St. Jean said he is in the process of updating the list. "We want to use as much Southwest Michigan area business as possible," he said. By Joe Boomgaard | MiBiz  |
