MONTICELLO, NY-In the latest roadblock for a 15-year attempt at establishing a Class III casino in the Catskills resort area, the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe said Thursday it has decided to end its exclusive discussions with Empire Resorts Inc. The tribe, whose application to build a casino at Monticello Raceway here got federal approval a decade ago, says in a statement that recent negotiations with raceway owner Empire Resorts led to “impasses on certain key terms.”
A referendum held by the tribe earlier this year showed community support for seeking a Catskills casino, but did not limit the tribe’s leadership to the Monticello Raceway site, according to the statement. “At the time, the Monticello Resorts site appeared to make the most sense to the tribe, as it had obtained final environmental approvals from the federal government,” Chief Mark Garrow says in the statement. “However, discussions with Empire Resorts to reach acceptable terms of a purchase agreement for the land, which is necessary to move any land-into-trust application forward, have not been successful.”
Empire Resorts notes in its own statement that the tribe is only the second in the 22-year history of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act to obtain the federal “two-part determination” necessary to own and operate an off-reservation casino. To build the casino, the land must be taken into trust and the tribe has successfully completed nearly all of the steps necessary to have this done; “all of the related approvals are still valid,” according to Empire’s statement.
However, the permitting process hit an obstacle in early 2008 when then-Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne turned down the tribe’s land-into-trust application, on grounds that the proposed casino site was too far from the tribe’s reservation. The tribe says in its statement that it will continue to continue to lobby the US Department of the Interior to reverse its stand on off-reservation gaming, “while seeking alternative sites and options in the Catskill region.”
For his part, Empire CEO Joseph D’Amato says his company will continue to explore “every growth opportunity including the expansion of our existing facility. In terms of tribal gaming, our Monticello Casino and Raceway site has unparalleled infrastructure, approvals and access that will make it a prime location for any future gaming in the Catskills should the St. Regis Mohawks, or any other tribe, wish to pursue off-reservation gaming in Sullivan County.”
The split between Empire and the tribe is the latest turn in a 15-year ride that began with Watermark Investments and its subsidiary Catskill Development taking on the tribe as partners in redeveloping the raceway following the departure of the Oneida tribe. In 1998, the Bureau of Indian Affairs approved the St. Regis Mohawks’ land trust application for Monticello Raceway.
Two years later, the Interior Department approved the casino, at which point the Mohawks split with Catskill Development in favor of Park Place Entertainment and a plan to build a casino at nearby Kutsher’s Sports Academy. That deal collapsed. In 2005, the Mohawks returned to Monticello Raceway, where the Cayuga tribe had ended its deal with Empire earlier that year.
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Paul Bubny
Paul Bubny is managing editor of Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com. He has been reporting on business since 1988 and on commercial real estate since 2007. He is based at ALM Real Estate Media Group's offices in New York City.
