Mohegan Tribe to invest in casino in Washington state

Margaret Ellis

Wednesday, March 23, 2005 | 11:45 a.m.

VANCOUVER, Wash. -- The gleaming glass of the Mohegan Sun's 34-story hotel is the only thing taller than the trees in this part of southeastern Connecticut. It dominates the skyline, like a city unto itself. A version of that skyline may be on its way to north Clark County, Wash., where the Mohegan Tribe hopes to manage a casino owned by the Cowlitz Tribe on 152 acres of pasture near La Center.

The Mohegan Tribe has pledged to invest $6.5 million in exchange for a percentage of the profit and an agreement to manage the facility for seven years. That won't buy anything like the Mohegan Sun, which completed a $1 billion expansion in 2002. But it is enough to build the biggest casino in Washington state. Cowlitz spokesman David Barnett says it will be bigger by half than the state's largest to date, the Tulalip Casino in Marysville, Wash.

The plan is contingent on the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is deciding whether to grant the Cowlitz's request that the 152 acres be named the tribe's first reservation.

If the tribe prevails, it plans to build a casino complex of more than 500,000 square feet. At its biggest, Barnett said there will be a hotel with 250 rooms, a 160,000-square-foot gaming floor, a parking garage to accommodate 8,500 cars and 150,000 feet for entertainment and conference facilities. Another 210,000 square feet will be devoted to restaurants and retail.

It sounds a lot like a scaled-down version of the Mohegan Sun.

The Mohegan Sun is the second-largest casino in the world with a 300,000-square-foot gaming floor, a 1,200-room hotel and three entertainment venues, one of which the 10,000-seat Mohegan Arena plays host to the WNBA women's pro basketball team, The Sun. It also has more than a dozen restaurants and a small shopping mall where guests can spend their winnings.

"We'll take everything we learned here and bring it there," Thomas Acevedo, chief of staff for the Mohegan Tribe, said of the hoped-for Cowlitz casino. Mohegan officials hope to duplicate what has contributed to their success, from the mall-like setup of shops to the hotel's check-in desk.

That's what has drawn groups with a stake in the Washington county's future to come to Uncasville to take a look for themselves. Acevedo said the tribe has hosted or plans to host representatives from Clark County, Wash., fire departments, city governments and schools.

It's not unusual. Tribal officials are always giving tours to chambers of commerce, business people and tribes who want to learn about the Mohegan Sun, he said.

In Clark County, Wash., nobody is worrying that a Cowlitz casino won't reach the Mohegan Sun's level of success. Instead, they're wondering how it will affect traffic, the environment, competing businesses and schools. Many assume it will be for the worse.

"It's not all peaches and cream," agreed Montville Mayor Joseph Jaskiewicz. Montville's boundaries include the Mohegan Sun. On the weekends, traffic on Interstate 395 leading to the casino can back up for three or four miles, he said.

Schools are strained because the Mohegan Sun has recruited many recent immigrants to work there. That has increased the number of students who need English-as-a-second-language classes, he said. Other officials have said the large number of employees has created an urgent demand for affordable housing. The Mohegan Sun employs 10,000.

Connecticut's casino critics focus most of their concern on the nearby Foxwoods Casino. It's the world's largest casino, owned by the Mashantucket-Pequot Tribe. "The Mohegans are actually easier to talk to and more accessible," said Marybeth Gorke-Felice, the co-chair of the board of directors for the Connecticut Alliance Against Casino Expansion. "The Mashantuckets have pretty much thumbed their nose at the community."

And in spite of the problems, Montville's Jaskiewicz doesn't find much fault with the Mohegans. "We have a good relationship with the Mohegan Tribe, we really do. A lot of the people who are affiliated with the tribe grew up in the town and still live in the town," he said. The Mohegans gave the city millions to help pay for an upgrade to Montville's sewer system, which benefited both groups.

Mohegan Tribe Vice Chairman Peter Schultz said the problems created by the world's two largest casinos might not offer a fair comparison to the Cowlitz's plans.

He said it was the number of people needed to run facilities that large together, the casinos employ more than 20,000 that forced the two tribes to look outside the area for employees, introducing a bigger population of non-English-speaking children to the school system. A Cowlitz casino is expected to create 5,000 jobs at the most, Schultz said, and those would probably be absorbed by local residents looking for work.

Whether in his own community or in the Washington county, he said the Mohegan Tribe wants to build trust. That's why he and other tribal leaders have been traveling across the country to answer questions and meet city leaders. "Face time. We believe in that," he said.