In 2014, the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians applied to the U.S. Department of the Interior to have a parcel in downtown Lansing, Michigan taken into federal trust for an off-reservation, $250 million Kewadin Lansing casino.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs rejected the application in 2017, claiming the location, 260 miles from the tribe’s reservation, was too far. Earlier this month a federal judge ruled the BIA must reconsider the application, but the tribe already has begun transferring the land back to the city.
Now JLLJ Development and Lansing Future Development are suing the tribe for at least $124 million plus damages, claiming breach of contract and misappropriation of funds. In court documents, the plaintiffs claim they would have received 14 percent of the profits from an on-site temporary casino and for the first seven years after the permanent casino opened. Neither were built.
Additionally, the plaintiffs said they loaned the Chippewa’s gaming authority $9 million to be used to acquire land and begin construction work. The lawsuit argues this sum was misappropriated, spent “as the Gaming Authority saw fit and not based on any mutually-approved budget,” according to legal documents.
The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa, federally recognized in 1972, owns five Kewadin casinos in Michigan.
