CCB MEDIA PHOTO: Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell, joined by tribal members and Taunton city officials, breaks ground for a casino resort Tuesday.
TAUNTON – The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe broke ground on a billion dollar casino in Taunton yesterday, paving the way for a full-scale Las Vegas-style resort.
With tribal members on hand, Chairman Cedric Cromwell climbed into an excavator and crushed the side of a vacant building in an industrial park where the casino will be located.
The first phase of the project is expected to be open by the summer of 2017.
“On this land, we’re building a modern Indian nation,” said Tribal Council Chairman Cedric Cromwell as he led hundreds in a lengthy, boisterous ceremony punctuated by Native American songs, chants and prayers.
“This is so much more than a casino. This is self-determination. We’re paving the way for our economic future.”
Cromwell also addressed the naysayers who have said for years that the casino would never be built.
“And though some doubted we would ever see this day come to pass, here we are – on track to open a first-class resort and be the first to market,” he said.
The resort is being built on a tribe-owned industrial park and is part of an over 300-acre federal reservation recently designated for the Mashpee Wampanoag, who trace their ancestry to the Native Americans that encountered the Pilgrims about 400 years ago.
Opponents of the project say they’ll keep fighting.
CCB MEDIA PHOTO: Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell sits in an excavator Tuesday as part of groundbreaking ceremonies Tuesday for a casino resort in Taunton.
“It is a high-risk bluff being taken by the tribe, but it does nothing to change the dynamics of the suit,” said Adam Bond, a Massachusetts lawyer representing Taunton residents challenging the decision to grant the tribe reservation land and, by extension, its right to open the casino.
Neil Bluhm, a prominent casino builder from Chicago that’s helping finance the lawsuit against the tribe, is proposing a $677 million resort in Brockton, Massachusetts, roughly 16 miles from the tribe’s Taunton casino site.
MGM and Wynn are also racing to open resort casinos in Massachusetts but have faced delays and aren’t slated to open their facilities until late 2018, at the earliest.
The tribe has warned Massachusetts regulators that there are negative financial consequences to allowing Bluhm’s plan to move forward.
A 2013 revenue-sharing deal obligates the tribe pay 17 percent of its annual gambling profits to the state, but only if no other casino is allowed to operate in the region.
The state Gaming Commission will decide whether to grant Bluhm a gambling license later this month.
Taunton Mayor Thomas Hoye on Tuesday called the tribe’s project, which is being financed by the Genting Group, a major Malaysia-based casino developer, as a “game changer” in the casino race.
Tribal officials say once complete, the First Light Resort and Casino will include 3,000 slot machines, 150 table games, 40 poker tables, multiple restaurants, three hotel towers and eventually a water park.
About CapeCod.com NewsCenter
Speak Your Mind