Mashantuckets Are California Dreamin’
The Day June 26, 2006
Mashantuckets Are California Dreamin’
Tribe Teams Up With Mission Indians For Planned Casino Near San Diego
By Scott Ritter
The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation said it will partner with a California tribe to build and manage a $300 million hotel and casino north of San Diego, giving the Mashantuckets a toehold in the state’s fast-growing Indian gaming market.
The announcement marks the latest move by the Mashantuckets to diversify beyond southeastern Connecticut, where the tribe owns Foxwoods Resort Casino. It follows failed bids by two other big gaming companies that had hoped to build the California casino.
The tribe’s Foxwoods Development Co. will oversee the project on the Pauma Band of Mission Indians’ reservation. The casino will feature 2,000 slot machines and 50 gaming tables, the Mashantuckets said. A 500-room hotel, an entertainment venue, restaurants and retail shops are also planned.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
The resort, which has not been named, will replace a smaller casino on the Pauma Band’s 5,800-acre reservation 50 miles north of San Diego. The tropical-themed Casino Pauma opened in 2001 and has 1,050 slot machines and 24 table games. That facility will stay open during construction.
The Mashantuckets are entering a market that shows little sign of cooling. Gaming revenue in California climbed 24 percent to $7.2 billion in 2005, from $5.8 billion the previous year, according to the Indian Gaming Industry Report, a study by Analysis Group economist Alan Meister.
There were 57 Indian casinos in the state in 2005; at least 47 others are on the drawing board, according to the report. California, the study said, is “ripe for further growth.”
The casino is within driving distance of major population centers, including Los Angeles and San Diego.
The Mashantuckets said predevelopment work will begin immediately. Among other things, the tribes must negotiate an agreement with San Diego County to address the casino’s impact on traffic and public safety off the reservation. The venture also needs approval from the National Indian Gaming Commission.
Construction is expected to take two years, with an opening planned for the spring of 2009.
“We are fortunate to have the financial resources and gaming expertise to help other tribal communities to achieve economic self sufficiency,” Mashantucket Chairman Michael Thomas said in a statement.
Other gaming giants besides Foxwoods Development have courted the Pauma Band in recent years.
In 2003, the tribe struck a deal with Las Vegas-based Park Place Entertainment Corp., later known as Caesars Entertainment, to build the $250 million Caesars Pauma resort and casino. The deal fell apart a year later when Caesars announced that it was being acquired by Harrah’s Entertainment Inc., which operated a rival casino just a few miles away.
Last year the Pauma Band considered offers from Foxwoods and Hard Rock Hotel Inc., eventually hiring Hard Rock to build and run a $300 million rock ‘n’ roll-themed casino and resort on its reservation. That deal also soured.
“Our reasons for partnering with the Pequots on this project involves more than the fact that they bring with them a spectacularly successful track record with their own gaming enterprise in Connecticut,” Pauma Chairman Chris Devers said in a statement. “The Pequots respect Native sovereignty and have a long history of struggle and perseverance, and we can relate to that.”
The Mashantuckets have several other projects in the work, including plans announced earlier this year for a $400 million casino in Biloxi, Miss.
The tribe is also vying for a gaming license in Philadelphia, where it envisions a $400 million riverfront casino. In Kansas, the Mashantuckets are working with the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska to develop a $270 million casino. The tribe has filed a gaming-license application in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, where it owns a stake in a 600-acre beachfront site.
The Pauma Band, recognized by the federal government in 1892, has four parcels of tribal lands totaling about 5,800 acres. In 1985, the tribe began an agricultural project with five acres of Hass avocados. Currently, it produces Hass avocados, Valencia oranges and lemons on about 60 acres.
s.ritter@theday.com
