Washington’s ilani Casino opened last week near La Center, causing a massive traffic jam along Interstate 5 for the first day as the casino’s parking lot reached its 3,000-space capacity and motorists were turned away for a time.
The crowd, which braved cold rains and winds to be there, chanted “Open! Open!” as the Cowlitz Indian Tribe went through the opening day ceremony, including a ribbon cutting, the usual speeches by VIPs and a performance by tribal drummers.
Kara Fox-LaRose, ilani’s president and general manager, who was involved with the project from 2015, called the event “a long-awaited historical moment.”
“I feel great. It has been an amazing experience here to be involved from the ground-up.” The casino opened after 21 months of construction.
Bill Iyall, chairman of the 4,000 member Cowlitz Tribe, declared, “We’ve been here 12,000 years. We Cowlitz are bound together as family.” The casino is in the southwest part of the state.
Chairman Iyall has led the tribe since 1998, two years before the federal government recognized it. He oversaw that effort as well as the effort to get the 152 acres where the casino is now. He called the decision-making as to what to do with the funds that will now be generated, “a bit overwhelming.”
The ilani (pronounced Ay-Lan-Ay) casino hopes to draw from the Portland market, which is 25 miles away. It has 368,000 square feet of gaming space, 2,500 slot machines and 75 gaming tables. In the offing is a 400-room hotel that will probably break ground in about three years. Patrons are served by eight restaurants, three bars and three shops. Another restaurant may follow in a few months. A 17,000 SF convention space will open this autumn.
Design is by the Friedmutter Group architectural firm and was built by San Francisco-based Swinerton Builders.
According to the Washington Department of Transportation traffic backed up for eight miles on the $510 million casino’s first day of operation. The first day brought in about 15,000 patrons, the casino said. It is built to house as many as 13,500 and expects an average of 8,000-10,000 per day. It is anticipating 4 million visitors annually.
The tribe financed $32 million worth of interstate upgrades to make the traffic work more efficiently.
General Manager Kara Fox-LaRose was expecting that the volume of players would taper off once the bar closed that night, but was surprised that at 3 a.m. several tables were still active and that there were more than 50 jackpots at the slot machines. “Just the activity and the energy,” she told the Columbian adding “You look at your watch, it’s 3 a.m. but you feel like it’s dinner time.”
She expected that the opening day would be unique and a typical Monday wouldn’t have that level of activity.
Meanwhile the Clark County Board of Councilors April 15 approved a law enforcement agreement with the Cowlitz tribe that will enable officers to enter the reservation and keep order. It also makes available county jails and courts, prosecution and defense for offenders arrested at the casino. The tribal council approved of the agreement the day before.
Per the agreement the tribe will pay $250,000 twice a year for sheriff’s office services and pay a varying amount for various court services. The agreement is for one year but may be extended if both parties agree.
Iyall said the tribe is also working on an agreement with the town of La Center on law enforcement. “They (La Center Police) certainly have jurisdiction now under this agreement once this is signed; it’s just a matter of compensation and capability,” he said. “We want the finest capability and response for our reservation; that is certainly a priority.”
One county counselor is criticizing Sheriff Chuck Atkins for not adding more deputies in light of the extra load. He said that meant other parts of the county would suffer by not being covered.
The casino employs about 1,000 residents, with another 500 employed by the restaurants and retail.
The new casino is expected to be a major hit to Oregon’s Spirit Mountain Casino, which operates about 60 miles from Portland, compared to 25 miles for the Ilani.
The Spirit Mountain is operated by the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, who, in their court challenge to the new casino claimed that their bottom line would be affected by about 40 percent or about $100 million a year.
The Oregon Lottery is also expecting to lose about $110 million in video poker sales (10 percent of total revenues,) which would cost the state about $72 million in tax revenues, specifically funds aimed at education, parks and economic development. Many of the state’s lottery terminals are clustered around Portland, which is just across the river from Washington, which doesn’t have a lottery.
The lottery plans to deploy 12,000 more VLTs across the state in response to the opening of the Ilani.
When the federal government recognized the tribe in 2000 most of those parties, including the city of Vancouver, Clark County, the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde, La Center card rooms and Citizens Against Reservation Shopping joined in a lawsuit to try to head it off. They were unsuccessful.
The U.S. Supreme Court a few weeks ago dealt the death blow to the final challenge.
Two La Center card rooms have already closed when they lost their dealers to the newer casino.
The city of Ridgefield, also virtually adjacent to the casino, expects to benefit from the casino and the crowds it will bring. Ridgefield includes the Clark County fairgrounds, and other tourist attractions. It sees the casino in that same light.
Brent Grening, chief executive officer of the Port of Ridgefield, told KGW News: “It really changes the perception of north Clark County, if not that of Clark County as a whole. With the addition of ilani, we really will have a broader spectrum of visitor tourism venues that also are available to people who live here.”
John McDonagh, chief executive officer of the Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce, which once opposed the casino, says the Chamber has changed its approach.
“I think the management of the casino has been very candid about running a really top notch resort facility, and we’re going to learn how well they deliver on it in the next weeks and months,” he said. “Given the size of the commitment they’ve made, I’d be surprised if they aren’t successful.”
One entity that expects to be hit by the new casino in the wallet—but which is fighting back— is Portland Meadows, the only remaining commercial horseracing track in Oregon.
The racetrack, which celebrated 70 years last year, is lobbying lawmakers to allow it to installed 40 more video lottery terminals to join the 10 they have now. They are urging support for House Bill 2971.
Other venues are limited to six lottery terminals per location. Only the racetrack is allowed to have 10. The theory is that the more terminals there are, the more revenue.
A lobbyist for the track, Mike Dewey, told Willamette Week: “We’re trying to keep the track alive.”
When the lottery was legalized in Oregon in 1995 the legislature passed a bill that would have allowed Portland Meadows to have 75 VLTs. Then Governor John Kitzhaber vetoed the bill, saying it would have turned the racetrack into a casino.
The state Supreme Court then ruled that “voters intended to prohibit the operation of establishments whose dominant use or dominant purpose, or both, is for gambling.”
This muddied the waters because “dominant use” has never been defined satisfactorily. The lottery employs a test that purports to say that retailers can’t get more than half of their revenue from gambling to host VLTs. Nevertheless, a state audit found that many retail venues fail this test. In the meantime voters, have declined to support legalizing private casinos.
As Willamette Week writer Nigel Jaquiss phrased it “So in effect, while Oregon pretends nontribal casinos are illegal, dozens of them operate in low-rent strip malls, while Washington welcomes a half-billion-dollar investment that will employ 1,200 people.”
