New York tribe plans casino expansion

Monday, Nov. 20, 2000 | 11:24 a.m.

VERONA, N.Y. -- The Oneida Indian Nation plans to expand its Turning Stone Casino Resort with several more restaurants, twice as many hotel rooms, an indoor parking garage, a bus terminal and at least 200 more cashless gaming machines.

Nation officials said the expansion, scheduled to begin next summer, will mean adding hundreds more employees and potentially 1 million more visitors per year. The casino-convention center complex presently employs 2,200 people and receives 3.5 million visitors annually.

Further expansion plans still on the drawing board call for a towering, 300-room hotel at the southern end of the convention center and some kind of adult water park, surrounded by restaurants and enclosed under a glass dome, Frank Riolo, chief operating officer for the Oneida's seven-year-old casino, said today.

The first phase of the expansion consists of a new 23,000-square-foot golf clubhouse with a store, restaurant, 400-seat banquet room and an outdoor balcony overlooking the first, 10th and 18th holes of the newly built, PGA-level golf course.

Also next year, the casino will add another 50,000 square feet of gaming space, a music lounge, a reconstructed cage for cashiers and a terminal for the 100 bus tours that come through in a week.

The Oneida's complex currently features a 90,000-square-foot gaming floor with blackjack, craps, roulette, wheels, baccarat, poker, 1,200 cashless slot machines and other games, plus eight restaurants, six stores, 285 hotel rooms, a spa, pool, exercise room and hair salon.