June 11,2018
Table Mountain Rancheria north of Fresno is planning a new larger casino as well as a hotel adjacent their existing casino facility according to an environmental report released a few days ago.
The existing 30-year old casino would be put to use as tribal government offices after the new, nearly 600,000sf casino-hotel is built some 900 feet west of the existing buildings.
According to the the report the new casino-hotel would feature approximately 110,000-sf gaming floor, 151-room hotel, 11,750 restaurant seats, child care facility, bingo hall, 1,500-seat special event center and ancillary facilities.
The existing facility has 72,000sf of gaming floor, about a third less and no hotel accommodations.
The proposed project would employ 1,454 total employees, which is an increase of 454 employees from those employed by the existing casino.
“We want to build a facility that will sustain us for generations to come ” says the tribe’s legal counsel Dan Casas. Construction could start early next year with completion sometime in 2020-21.
“We will soon announce our general contractor and there will be plenty of jobs for all the trades in the Valley” notes Casas.
Casas says the rancheria has come a long way since 1987 when gambling was launched in a small Butler building with an 8-foot ceiling and some bingo tables.
The new facility will be state-of-the art and self-financed he says.”We have no plans to sell alcohol”he adds.
Nationally Indian gaming continues to increase its revenues according to reports. In 2016 total Indian gaming revenues were up over 4% across the nation and up over 6.3% in the Sacramento region.The National Indian Gaming Commission released the Fiscal Year 2016 Gross Gaming Revenue numbers totaling $31.2 billion, an overall increase of 4.4% from 244 tribes.A new report for 2017 is expected a a few weeks.
A public meeting on the Table Mountain project will be held on June 28, 2018 at the Ramada Inn, located at 324 E Shaw Ave, Fresno, CA 93710, to receive comments on the project. The public meeting will start at 6:00 p.m. and will run until the last comment is heard or 9 p.m., whichever occurs earlier.
The Table Mountain Rancheria is a federally recognized tribe of Native American people from the Chukchansi band of Yokuts and the Monache tribe. It is also the tribe’s ranchería, located in Fresno County, California.
The tribe owns and operates Table Mountain Casino, Eagle Springs Golf Course, the Eagle’s Landing restaurant, Mountain Feast Buffet, and TM Cafe, all located in Friant.