(For more retail coverage, click GlobeSt.com/RETAIL.)
SNOQUALMIE, WA-A 165,000-sf, mountain-style lodge casino near here is less than two years away now that the 650-member Snoqualmie Tribe has secured $330-million acquisition and construction financing for the development. Tribal administrator Matt Matteson tells GlobeSt.com that site work is scheduled to begin on Feb. 26 and that the casino is expected to open for business in November 2008.
The project is slated for a wooded 56-acre site off Interstate 90, just outside Snoqualmie city limits. In addition to the gaming floor, the casino will include a 1,000-seat event center, five restaurants, a cigar lounge and wine bar. It will be the closest tribal casino to Seattle.
The construction financing, which closed this week, was the largest-ever bond offering for tribal gaming, Matteson says. It was underwritten by Bear Stearns.
The project was originally scheduled to get started last year but was delayed after its development partner, Arizona-based MGU Development LLC, backed out of the project shortly after the tribe's five-year-old application to put the land into trust won approval from the US Bureau of Indian Affairs. The tribe proceeded to secure a bridge loan to acquire the property from MGU so it could be moved into federal trust, thereby making it eligible for use as a casino.
MGU paid $3.8 million for the site in 2003. The tribe paid $50.8 million for the property in October. The past several months were spent arranging the bond offering, some of the proceeds from which will pay off the bridge loan used to acquire the land.
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