Tribe eyeing second casino in N.Y.

Carolyn Thompson

Tuesday, June 17, 2003 | 9:23 a.m.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- After successfully transforming the Niagara Falls Convention Center into a lively casino, the Seneca Indian Nation is eyeing the Buffalo Convention Center for a second gambling venture.

City and Erie County officials on Monday anticipated meeting with Seneca leaders in the near future after the Tribal Council named the downtown convention center as its first choice to locate a Buffalo casino.

The council Saturday directed Seneca President Rickey Armstrong to send a letter asking whether the building was for sale.

While Mayor Anthony Masiello called the development "a real opportunity to create new investment," County Executive Joel Giambra was more reserved. He raised concerns about the potential loss of convention business and its impact on surrounding hotels and restaurants.

"The economic impact of the meetings, conventions, trade shows and consumer product exhibitions is at least $75 million annually," Giambra said, adding he was open to meeting with tribal leaders.

One compromise being floated is preserving part of the 190,000-square-foot building for conventions. Armstrong declined to disclose Saturday whether he would consider the option, saying it would be part of negotiations with city leaders. He was out of town and unavailable for comment Monday, a spokeswoman said.

The president of the Buffalo Niagara Convention & Visitors Bureau said the idea "absolutely wouldn't work at all." Richard Geiger said groups who book conventions use both floors of the building for exhibits and meeting space. "They need the enitre building," he said.

"We have a lot of business on the books and cannot allow the convention center, or any portion of it, to become or be used for a casino," he said.

The Senecas opened their Niagara Falls casino on New Year's Eve after reaching a profit-sharing agreement with the state. The tribe has promised New York 18 percent of slot machine proceeds this year, with the state's share to rise to 25 percent after seven years. The city of Niagara Falls is to receive 25 percent of the state's share.

A Buffalo casino would likely operate under similar terms.

Mickey Brown, head of the Seneca gaming corporation, said Monday the tribe was on track to give the state about $36 million by Dec. 31 from the Niagara Falls operation.

A spokesman for a coalition of casino opponents said the idea of losing the Buffalo Convention Center for a casino would not make economic sense since the city would likely lose more convention revenue than it would gain in casino profits. The Rev. G. Stanford Bratton of the Western New York Coalition Against Casino Gambling called the idea of having both conventions and the casino under one roof "absurd."

"It's hard to imagine anyone who would want to bring a convention in and walk through a casino to get to the convention on the second floor," Bratton said.

The Niagara Falls casino employs 2,040 people, Brown said, and attracts an average of 10,000 gamblers on weekdays, about 15,000 on Fridays and Sundays and 20,000 people on Saturdays. About half the visitors are from the Niagara Falls and Buffalo areas, he said, while most of the balance travel from Rochester, Syracuse and Erie, Pa.

Buffalo and Niagara Falls are about 25 miles apart.

Permission for the Senecas to open as many as three casinos in western New York was included in a gambling expansion approved by state legislators in 2001 as a way to make up for revenues lost after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.