The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde in Oregon recently announced it plans to build 8-story hotel as part of an “entertainment-orientated campus” at the former Multnomah Greyhound Park in Wood Village—but a casino is not included in the plans, tribal officials said. The 2,300-member Grand Ronde tribe bought the 31-acre site for million last year. At its peak, the rack drew more than 611,000 fans a year. It closed and has been empty since 2004. Now demolition has begun and is expected to be completed by mid-September.
Tribal Chairman Reyn Leno said opening a casino would require a long process and several years to accomplish. “There’s a lot of hurdles for gaming,” Leno said. Current state law limits tribes to one casino, which must be located on tribal lands. The tribe already operates the Spirit Mountain Casino in Grand Ronde, outside Portland.
Still, there’s a lot of local speculation that the tribe will try to open a casino at the former racetrack site in the future. Architect Lee Leighton of Mackenzie design firm, which is working on the tribe’s plan, noted the property is located a mile from Interstate 84, the nearest major highway. “It’s not a great site for a hotel on its own. None of these amusement venues would have the gravity to attract people by themselves.” Leighton said unlike large hotels and tourist destinations that want roadway visibility, the tribe’s planned complex will be set back from nearby streets.
Not everyone is happy about the possibility of a casino in the neighborhood. Diamond Darcy’s lottery outlet owner Tip Hanzlik said, “I find it concerning that the word ‘casino’ is almost avoided. It’s like, ‘Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.’”
However, Wood Village City Manager Bill Peterson welcomes the development. He the tribe sees “an opportunity to use their skill set in the entertainment arena in an attractive and beneficial way. The tribe is a government itself and it wants to diversify its investments to benefit its constituents.”
Tribal spokesperson Nancy Hamilton said, “The tribe is in the middle of doing an economic analysis of some options and the city of Wood Village is in the middle of a Town Center Master Plan effort.” She said the city presented four options for the use of the land. “The option that focused on a hotel and entertainment, which was one of four vignettes the city proposed, was clearly the favorite in the room, which was heartening to the tribe, because that’s really the direction they would like to go as well.”
Hamilton noted the tribe is working closely with the city “to insure that it’s a project that works for the tribe and works as part of this bigger master plan.” She emphasized, “There are no current plans to put the property into trust. There are no current plans to have a casino.”
Leno said the racetrack-site project is part of a major program that also includes renovating Spirit Mountain Casino, which could lose business when the Cowlitz Tribe’s Ilani Casino, now under construction 30 miles north of Portland in Washington, opens in April 2017. Recently in a unanimous decision, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Grand Ronde Tribes in favor of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which approved the land-trust application for the site in Washington.
Cowlitz Tribe Chairman Bill Iyall posted on Facebook, “After 160 years of landlessness, the federal government and the federal courts have confirmed our right to this reservation. We are moving forward, improving the lives of our 4,000 tribal members, bringing more jobs to the local economy and continuing to forge partnerships in the southwestern Washington community.”
