Cherokees to add hotel skyscraper to mountain casino

Thursday, June 29, 2000 | 9:34 a.m.

The planned $60 million project would be built on the tribe's reservation in the Appalachian Mountains next to Harrah's Cherokee Smoky Mountains Casino. The hotel would be the tallest building in the state west of Asheville.

"It's going to be a beautiful building," said Norma Moss, facility operations manager for Harrah's casino. "We're hoping to incorporate traditional Cherokee art and feeling."

Harrah's officials recently told the Cherokee Tribal Council the hotel could generate an estimated $12 million per year. Construction is expected to start this summer and take 14 months.

About 300 workers will be added to the casino's 1,500 employees, Moss said.

Some members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians said they were uneasy with how rapidly their small community has grown and changed since the casino opened in November 1997.

Moses Walkingstick, 47, said he approves of many of the economic benefits the casino has brought to rank-and-file tribe members, but he worries that his people will lose touch with their Cherokee culture and identity.

"The good Lord gave us different ways to live. I think some are forgetting they are Cherokee people," he said.

Most of the tribe's 12,500 members receive about $2,000 twice a year in shared profits from the casino, which attracts nearly 3.5 million visitors annually.

The Cherokees operate their casino under a compact agreement with the state of North Carolina. The agreement, entered into in 1994 after Cherokees sued the state, allows payouts up to $25,000.

The tribe is negotiating with state officials to expand the gambling space. There are more than 2,460 video machines in the casino.

The state Senate on Wednesday reversed plans to make it illegal to possess any machines that offer video poker, bingo, craps, keno, lotto or other games.

North Carolina law has long banned video poker machines, but court decisions combined with changes in the law allowed them on a limited basis beginning in the early 1990s. Current law limits any payouts from video poker machines to coupons that can be redeemed for $10 or less in merchandise.