Two regional casinos are adding meeting and convention space to the pot as part of overall expansion projects.
Mohegan Sun has several expansion projects under way as part of “Project Horizon.”
The “Project Horizon” expansion will add a new 922-room hotel with 261 House of Blues-themed hotel rooms, which will be owned and operated by Mohegan Sun, along with a House of Blues Music Hall, restaurant and members-only House of Blues Foundation Room. It also calls for roughly 115,000 square feet of additional retail and restaurant space and the new 64,000-square-foot Casino of the Wind. The entire $950 million project is scheduled to be completed by 2010.
As part of the project, Uncasville-based Mohegan Sun will be adding around 11,500 square feet of conventional meeting space to its existing meeting space. The casino currently offers 100,000 square feet of meeting and convention space, said Cathy Soper, public relations manager for the casino.
“The expansion will add to our meeting space,” she said.
Among the current meeting and convention space at Mohegan Sun is the Uncas Ballroom with 38,000 square feet of space that is divisible into 10 separate meeting rooms, 30 conference and breakout rooms that can accommodate up to 5,300 people, and more than 14,000 square feet of space adjacent to the grand ballroom.
Foxwoods is also in the midst of an ambitious $925 million expansion, the main portion of which is a new casino-hotel building, the MGM Grand at Ledyard-based Foxwoods. The MGM Grand, expected to open in May, will have its own hotel and a 4,000-seat theater, as well as a large spa and several high-end restaurants.
The project will also feature an additional 115,000 square feet of meeting and function space, adding to the already existing 55,000 square feet of space offered at Foxwoods.
The additions include a 50,000-square-foot ballroom that Foxwoods says will be the largest in the Northeast. It can accommodate up to 3,800 people for meeting or conference functions, according to the casino.
Both Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun have said the additional meeting and convention space being built is an attempt to further distinguish the resorts as regional or national convention destinations, such as Atlantic City.
One potential regional competitor for those conventions is currently in limbo.
The St. Regis Mohawk Tribe and Empire Resorts had designs to build a $600 million full-scale casino resort in the Catskills region of New York, but the tribe”™s joint application to take the land adjacent to the Monticello Raceway in Sullivan County, N.Y., where the casino would be built was rejected by the federal government. The tribe needed federal approval to take the land into trust since it sits several hundred miles from designated tribal land. The resort would have included some aspect of meeting and convention space.
Empire is now planning on building a $700 million “Entertainment City” proposed in partnership with Westchester County, N.Y., developer Louis Cappelli.
The plan includes relocating the Monticello Gaming and Raceway to a 160-acre parcel of land at the site of the historic Concord Hotel, which is owned by Cappelli.
The “Entertainment City” project is expected to feature a 100,000-square-foot gaming area, convention center, hotel, golf, retail stores, restaurants and various family entertainment activities.
