Dive Brief:
- The Sycuan tribe broke ground earlier this week on a 300-room, $226 million hotel next to its San Diego County casino, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
- This is Sycuan Casino's first hotel, and the project will feature 50 luxury suites, an 8,400-square-foot spa and fitness center, an 11,000-square-foot ballroom that doubles as a 1,200-seat concert venue, an 8-acre swimming pool center, restaurants and space for outdoor gambling.
- The Sycuan Casino is one of the only casinos in the county without a hotel, which has caused it to lose some business to competing venues.
Dive Insight:
Casinos are major draws, and operators know that they can keep the money flowing by offering entertainment, dining and hotel operations to those who come to gamble. Casino legend Steve Wynn is counting on that when he opens his $2.1 billion casino complex in Massachusetts in June 2019. The Wynn Boston Harbor casino and hotel will offer up 3 million square feet in total to visitors, as well as a resort-like setting.
However, Wynn faces nearby competition from the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe. The tribe is building a $500 million resort and casino about 40 miles south of Boston, a project launched not long after the U.S. Department of the Interior granted it sovereign territory status. The tribe is planning a 150,000-square-foot casino, a 600-room hotel, a 15,000-square-foot event center, a 25,000-square-foot water park, and restaurant and retail venues.
There are also those developers who are reversing that successful formula and taking a chance on a new one — converting former casinos into non-gambling family resorts. One New Jersey developer, R&R Development Group, said it plans to invest $135 million to turn the former Atlantic Club in Atlantic City into a 300-room resort with an indoor water park. If the project comes to fruition, it would be the third recently closed casino property in Atlantic City to be rebranded and transformed into another type of venue.