At a recent networking event, Ho-Chunk Nation President Wilfrid Cleveland discussed the tribe’s proposed $405.5 million casino, hotel and water park complex in Beloit, Wisconsin and his meeting in March with Bureau of Indian Affairs staff in Washington, D.C. Cleveland said, “The plan’s on their desk. It’s moving through the BIA and there are varying circumstances that have to be met.”
Cleveland added the latest meeting didn’t expose “any red flags” about the project, but he noted the tribe wasn’t sure when the BIA would list an Environmental Impact Statement. “We hope it would progress but we have to focus on our work at home as the plan moves around. We don’t view it as a delay. It’s a slow moving process,” he said.
Previous expectations had the casino resort listed in the federal registry in the first quarter of this year, followed by a public hearing in late 2018. Public Relations Officer Collin Price confirmed Cleveland’s statements, comparing the project to a construction job. “We will continue to work to educate all involved as the process moves forward,” he said, adding, “Once the EIS draft is federally listed, it will really get us moving.”
Project plans unveiled in December showed the development would include a 300-room hotel, 40,000 square foot water park and 30,000 square foot conference center/entertainment space. Cleveland noted it would create 1,500 jobs. “It would almost become an attraction for not only the casino, but also for families to come and that would impact the city of Beloit and the county we reside in,” Cleveland said.
Under an intergovernmental agreement, the tribe would share 2 percent of net win proceeds, estimated at $5 million in annual revenue. The city of Beloit would receive $3.5 million and Rock County would receive $1.5 million.
But a mere 18 miles south, officials in Rockford, Illinois are concerned if the Beloit casino is approved, residents of Winnebago and Boone counties will gamble there, which also would impact the area’s hotels and concert venues. Illinois state Senator Dave Syverson said the Ho-Chunk casino “will mean literally millions of dollars out of Rockford’s economy. We can’t compete with a facility that is that big that doesn’t pay taxes.”
Syverson and several Winnebago County board members are working with state legislators not only to pass a bill allowing casinos, but locating one in Rockford. “Rockford has a choice. It can either fight for this thing now, or if Wisconsin gets one then it’s really too late for Rockford,” Syverson said.
He noted if the Illinois House passes a gambling bill before the session ends on May 31, construction on a Rockford casino would begin in 2019.
