Just before coronavirus began dominating the news cycle last month, the U.S. Department of the Interior approved a proposal from the Catawba Indian Nation to build a casino complex on 16.57 acres in Kings Mountain.
“The Nation is very thankful for the Department’s decision to take this land into trust, enabling us to achieve the promise of self-determination though economic development,” said Catawba Chief William Harris in a statement.
According to plans, the entertainment facility will cost $273 million.
The casino will have 1,796 slots, 54 table games, and a player’s club, along with restaurants and bars with a total of 940 seats. It’ll be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Been going to Harrah's Cherokee since 1980. I am a smoker who loves to smoke and gamble.Wrong, they changed policy earlier in the year and made an Indian casino non -smoking! Now don't get me wrong, there should be some non-smoking casinos or a non-smoking floor in every casino but quit trying to make every casino non-smoking. The Catawba casino would be located just 35 miles from Charlotte. The casino project also drew harsh criticism in early 2019 from North Carolina state lawmakers after North Carolina’s two U.S. Senators, Republicans Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, signed on as primary sponsors of a bill introduced by South Carolina Sen.
Timeline: The tribe has not provided an exact target grand opening date, but it’ll be in several years. Once plans are finalized, construction is estimated to take well over a year. “We will share the timeline as quickly as possible, but do plan to have the casino opening as quickly as possible,” says Elizabeth Harris, a Catawba Indian Nation representative.
It’s unclear how the coronavirus outbreak will impact the planning or construction timeline. Last month, the Catawbas said all tribal meetings and events would be canceled through at least April 30.
Details:Proposed plans call for a 195,000-square-foot mixed use development with over 75,000 square feet of gaming space. The casino will have 1,796 slots, 54 table games, and a player’s club, along with restaurants and bars with a total of 940 seats. It’ll be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It’s not yet clear whether or not there will be a sports book.
“In order to have those types of games we have to negotiate a gaming compact with the North Carolina Governor’s office,” Elizabeth Harris tells the Agenda. “We plan to begin working with them on getting a compact in place.”
Location: The new casino will be in Kings Mountain, right off of Interstate 85 at Dixon School Road. It’s 35 miles from Uptown. Plans for the project call for about 1,110 surface-level parking spaces and a five-story parking deck, which will have 1,020 spaces.
Neighboring business: “We think this is going to be very positive for all businesses in the area,” says Monique Sullivan founder of Veronét Vineyards & Winery, which is just a few miles away from the casino site.
“We really love how our vineyard is a great day trip and escape for people from Charlotte, and so many hikers from Crowders are coming out to enjoy nature with a morning hike and then spending the afternoon with us. Now when you add the casino, we think it’s going to contribute a lot of momentum to the area.”
(Veronét temporarily closed its doors on March 17, in compliance with the state’s stay at home order.)
Renderings courtesy of Catawba Indian Nation and Delaware North
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After years of on-again, off-again efforts, the Catawba Indians plan to break ground Wednesday on a nearly $300 million casino 35 miles from Charlotte in Kings Mountain.
A tribe official on Friday confirmed the plans that would bring Vegas-style gambling to the Charlotte area. The Catawbas plan to open the casino in late spring or early summer of next year.
”The Catawba Nation is excited to get this long awaited project moving forward,” Catawba Chief Bill Harris said Friday. “The project will have a huge impact on the Cleveland County region bringing much needed jobs as well as on the future of the Catawba Nation.”
The groundbreaking comes despite a lawsuit against the project by the Eastern Band of Cherokees, who operate their own casinos in western North Carolina.
Based in South Carolina, where gambling is prohibited, the Catawbas have looked across the border for at least seven years. The tribe finally won federal approval in March to acquire 16 acres near Interstate 85 in Cleveland County. The U.S. Interior department put the land in trust, a designation that gives it the right to develop a casino.
At the time Harris called it “a righting of a wrong.”
The proposed casino has reignited a feud between the Carolinas’ biggest tribes over centuries-old land claims and big money. At stake is a piece of the $32 billion Indian gaming industry.
The Cherokees, who have operated their own N.C. casinos since 1997, have called the Catawbas’ efforts “a modern-day land grab.”
The Catawbas say they have a right to the land based on a provision of a 1993 agreement that gave them federal recognition. The agreement also gave them a “service area” in six N.C. counties, including Mecklenburg and Cleveland. Tribe members who live in those counties are eligible for the same federal benefits and services as those living on the reservation. That’s the basis for their claim to the N.C. land.
This spring, when the federal government put the land in trust, the Cherokees sued.
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A federal judge rejected their request for a preliminary injunction, saying the Cherokees had not suffered “irreparable harm” by the government’s approval of the Catawba casino. In a memo explaining his order, Judge James Boasberg cited the Catawbas’ “significant economic challenges.”
“Its unemployment rate, for example, hovers around 13.8%,” he wrote, “more than three times the corresponding rates in North and South Carolina. . . . (I)ts median household income — roughly $30,000 — is about 30% below the equivalent figures for the Carolinas. Given that it lacks a sustainable revenue stream, the Nation cannot adequately provide financial assistance to its members.”
He said the casino would generate $72 million in income in its first year and $150 million after five years.
This month the Cherokees filed an amended claim, arguing that political pressure from the project’s developer prompted the government to pave the way for the casino and bypass Congress in the process.
In a statement, Cherokee Chief Richard Sneed called the scheduled groundbreaking “a slap in the face to Judge James Boasberg.”
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“It’s investors’ money to flush as they see fit,” Sneed said. “The facts are clear that the DOI violated federal law in their rushed, politicized decision and we are confident that the court will ultimately put an end to Wallace Cheves’ shady scheme to force this casino on North Carolina.”
Over the past 18 months, developer Wallace Cheves has given nearly $500,000 to President Trump, the Republican Party, U.S. Sens. Thom Tillis and Lindsey Graham and other GOP lawmakers, according to the Federal Election Commission.
The Eastern Band also has been a big donor. Since 2019 it has given $213,000 to national party groups, equally divided between Democrats and Republicans.
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