The Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma recently held a topping-off ceremony for the million, seven-story second tower at its Indigo Sky Casino in Wyandotte. Tribal Chief Glenna Wallace told the large crowd assembled for the event, “This is a monumental occasion. There is no way that when I first began to serve on the business committee, which would have been 28 years ago, there is no way that I could have begun to fathom the progress that we would make and what would happen to this tribe. So it truly is a day of celebration.”
The project, which broke ground June 6 and is expected to be completed by late July 2017, will provide 250 construction and 45 permanent jobs. Among the improvements, the new facility will add 127 hotel rooms for a total of 244. The Shawanoe Restaurant will add 100 seats, the buffet area will be expanded and a new banquet kitchen will be installed. The project also will include a 600-seat banquet space, a ballroom that can be divided into five areas for events and concerts, two additional meeting rooms, plus a boardroom with four meeting rooms.
Currently Indigo Sky Casino features a gaming floor with 1,275 electronic gaming machines, a poker room, bingo and off-track betting. It also offers three food venues, two bars, banquet space, 117 hotel rooms and a swimming pool. The facility, which began started as a bingo hall in 1984, today employs 650 people.
The Eastern Shawnee Tribe Business Committee Treasurer Cheryl Barnes said the additional hotel rooms will fill a real need. She noted, “We don’t have enough rooms and that’s a good problem.” First Council Business Committee member Larry Kropp said, “In a six-month period last year we turned away over 6,800 people wanting rooms and right now it can be a month out to book a room for the weekend.”
At the ceremony, Wallace remarked that her mother, formerly the tribe’s secretary/treasurer, would have been 103 years old. “I regret that she isn’t able to see what has happened here because it’s people like my mother, and people and chiefs whose shoulders we stand upon, who have made this possible for us. They had dreams. Without those dreams, without holding this tribe together, we wouldn’t be here today.”
The tribe also owns and operates Bordertown Casino & Arena and the Outpost Casino.
