The Cherokee Tribal Council recently voted 8-3 to authorize the Tribal Casino Gaming Enterprise to borrow up to 0 million for a huge expansion project at the 20 year-old Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort in Cherokee, North Carolina. Principal Chief Patrick Lambert said, “I’m extremely pleased that we were able to pass this through council and continue to grow our enterprise. The convention center and hotel is just a first step in completing our vision of making Cherokee a great place to visit, benefiting not only our casino but our tribal businesses as well.”
Harrah’s Regional Vice President for Marketing Leeann Bridges said the current facility, with 1,100 hotel rooms and a 16,000 square foot event center, is not large enough to meet increasing demand. Contracts with surrounding hotels to accept overflow business results in guests spending 80,000 hotel nights outside Harrah’s, she said, but the resort still loses 120,000 hotel reservations a year.
To improve the situation, the expansion will add 600-800 hotel rooms, a parking deck and a 100,000 square foot event center at the existing 1,900,000 square foot complex. “This new facility that we are talking about is really going to allow us to blow up that convention business even more,” Bridges said. She added the new hotel tower—Harrah’s fourth—will boost revenue by $4-$6 million annually and create 200-250 new jobs.
Plans still are preliminary and an architect has not been selected. The project most likely will be completed in early 2020, Bridges said. “If we could have a shovel in the ground by year’s end, I think we would be very pleased with that,” she stated.
The original structure was built for $83 million in 1999. New hotel towers were added in 2002 and 2005, a $254 million expansion was completed in 2006 and a $633 million expansion was completed in 2012. The casino includes 170 tables with live dealers and 3,600 digital slot machines. The
casino employs 2,600 people in Cherokee, and another 1,000 in the $110 million Valley River Casino, which opened in September 2015. A $13 million, 24-lane bowling alley is set to open there this fall.
Harrah’s officials expected Valley River Casino to attract about 1.5 million people annually but first-year visitation was 1.1 million. Bridges said, “Our VIPs, they tried Murphy, they told us, ‘The gaming products, the food court, that’s great but we really prefer the amenities that are in Cherokee.’ We continued to see that higher-end play continue to come to Cherokee with some visits to Valley River, so that was a surprise for us.” She added, “For so many years we’ve been VIP-driven here in Cherokee, but now we’re able to look at these other segments of guests that have been underserved.” She said she the casino will reach the projected 1.5 million mark as the casino adjusts its marketing strategy and also adds a bar and entertainment stage and a sit-down restaurant. Currently the only dining option is a food court.
