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NEWS/VIDEO REPORT:23-story hotel a go for Lincoln area
Construction poised to start on massive two-year Thunder Valley Casino project
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Construction is poised to start within two weeks on the United Auburn Indian Community’s new 650-room, 23-story hotel and 3,000-seat performing arts center at Thunder Valley Casino near Lincoln.
The construction project, which will expand on the current five-year-old casino, is expected to be completed by summer 2010.
As well as the hotel and performing arts center, the project includes completion of three new restaurants, more gaming space and a new poker room, a parking structure capable of holding 5,000 cars, and spa.
Tribal leaders held a ceremonial groundbreaking Wednesday in front of the casino.
Jessica Tavares, chairwoman of the Auburn-based tribe, said that the casino’s success has allowed the expansion but has also provided its 200 members the funding for health insurance, a tribal school and a permanent tribal office, as well as educational opportunities “previous generations never dreamed of.”
The expansion will add to the initial casino footprint – a 200,000-square-foot building constructed at a cost of $215 million and opened in June 2003.
The casino has more than 2,700 slot machines and 98 gaming tables, as well as a 500-seat buffet.
The United Auburn Indian Community is estimating that the expansion will create more than 1,200 new jobs when it opens – adding to the 2,000 jobs that already exist there.
Scott Garawitz, Thunder Valley CEO, said the two-year project will take the casino “to the next level” as a full-service casino, resort and spa.
Garawitz said it wasn’t too many years ago that participants would have been standing in a cowfield on the site.
“Today, we have one of the most successful casinos in the United States,” Garawitz said. “But this is nothing compared to where the tribe wants to take it.”
For the next two years, work on the casino will provide the area with 1,200 construction jobs during a slowdown in that sector, he noted.
Garawitz described the planned hotel as the “coolest anywhere in Northern California,” with the largest suite measuring a spacious 3,000 square feet.
“Most people would call that a house,” he joked.
The hotel’s designer normally does work for Ritz Carlton and Four Seasons properties and the theater designer drew up the plans for the Celine Dion theater in Las Vegas as well as for Cirque de Soleil.
The expansion also holds the promise of new revenue for government during a down period for revenues.
Thunder Valley estimates are that once the expansion is completed, property tax payments will skyrocket from the current $2.72 million to $10.7 million. Based on that number, the value of new construction would be in the $800 million range.
Food and beverage sales taxes would increase from $550,000 a year to about $1 million. The hotel will bring in about $1.4 million in tourism-directed bed taxes and Placer County Tourism will receive about $200,000 annually from a $1 a night hotel occupancy tax.
The Journal’s Gus Thomson can be reached at gust@goldcountrymedia.com.
united, auburn, indian, community, lincoln, thunder valley, 650-room, hotel, performing arts center, theater, tavares
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They should also allow the UAI Tribe to operate prostitution and drug dens as long as they use the money for good things.
When you think about it, they could start publishing child porn too. It really does not matter what particular type of business they run as long as they throw some bucks into good causes.
The money is what is important, not the impact upon the community.
/sarc
A 23 story hotel? You gotta be kidding me. Stinkin' Lincoln is suddenly some big tourist attraction? LOL
Congratulations to the UAI tribe! This revenue generator is just one more piece to help take care of their people today and create a legacy for future generations to come. I'm sure the hotel will be beautiful and a great addition to the HWY 65/Lincoln area.
Remember the movie "The Godfather"?
Not all philanthropists are good people, and not all worthy causes are so worthy that they justify the means used to achieve them.
Gambling is a waste of lives and resources. To give some people the right to operate casinos, based upon the wrongs that were done to their ancestors, is wrong. To make the argument that good things are done with the money obtained in such an immoral way, is also wrong.
Back when Arnold was working out the pact for this casino to operate, a hotel should have been a requirement in order for them to open their doors. They have been raking in all the gambling money & turning possible drunk drivers out on the road without a place to stay. Maybe now with the addition of a performance venue, I'll have a reason to go there.
The 200 tribe members are now getting about $800,000 each per year, just for being members of the tribe. Further expansion of the casino is clearly unnecessary, if the aim of the tribe is to provide for the welfare of its members. So what is the goal of the tribe other than to build a self-perpetuating financial empire?
The tribe's financial windfall is the result of an artificially created legal loophole that gives native Americans the exclusive right to operate casinos in the State of California. I don't have a problem with that to the point that members of the UAI receive generous educational and health benefits, and even to the extent of their making nearly $1milion each, per year just for walking to the mailbox. There comes a point, however where the societal costs of legalized gambling outweigh the needs of the tribe, and that point has now been reached.
Well, I think the local tribe has had the last laugh. In high school, they were truant, hard drinking and quick to fight. Now, they are pillars of the community. Or at least their bank accounts make them seem so.