Empire Resorts is undertaking a second sale of stock to build the Montreign Resort Casino at Adelaar, while the Lago Resort & Casino in Tyre faces continued opposition.
Empire on January 1 started selling shares on the Nasdaq exchange with a goal of raising $241 million toward the $1.3 billion estimated cost to build and open the Montreign. Empire is selling shares at $14.40 each until February 10, it reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Empire last year raised another $50 million through a similar equity sale, and said it will borrow $545 million to build the casino.
Empire also plans to raise another $84 million in shares in the future to cover related projects, such as a planned reworking of the Monster golf course and building an entertainment village.
Work on the Montreign got underway within days of the state awarding Empire the gaming license for the casino on December 31 and after the Town of Thompson granted the necessary building permits to lay the casino’s foundation.
Empire also has conducted vendor informational meetings for virtually all aspects of the business, from landscaping to laundry services and many others. Hundreds of vendors turned out for the meetings, many of them small, locally owned businesses that hope to provide a variety of services.
Meanwhile, work continues on Lago casino in Tyre, and so does its opposition.
Workers earlier this month placed the first steel support beam for the $440 million casino, and local officials held a formal ceremony for the occasion. The event was attended by local business and labor leaders in the Finger Lakes area, plus local residents and more than 350 local officials.
The casino is expected to create 1,800 jobs and boost local tourism in the Finger Lakes area of Upstate New York with three million new visitors each year.
For that to happen, the casino must survive a legal challenge before the New York Supreme Court, in which the local Casino-Free Tyre seeks to stop the project from proceeding due to safety and environmental concerns.
The state’s Supreme Court is reviewing the group’s challenge of the casino’s environmental review process and could order work to stop if it finds any problems with the review, which was the site’s second.
The Oneida Indian Nation, which owns the Turning Stone Casino 70 miles away in Verona, and the Finger Lakes Gaming and Racetrack also have filed legal challenges to the Lago casino, but none have stopped work on the casino, which is planned to open sometime next year.
The Oneida Nation accuses state gaming regulators improperly issued a gaming license for the Lago casino and want its gaming license revoked, but some accuse the tribe of simply protecting its current gaming monopoly.
The Seneca County Board of Supervisors criticized the Oneida Nation’s lawsuit, saying the county never received a penny from the Turning Stone Casino and the lawsuit goes against the local community’s best interests.
