Local construction workers set the final steel beam into place for the new Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino yesterday. The $130 million project, being developed on the Seneca Nation's nine-acre Buffalo Creek Territory, is expected to be a central component in the rejuvenated tourism and recreation environment being cultivated in the Inner Harbor area.
"Today, we have reached new heights on an exciting new path for the Seneca Nation, for our neighbors in the City of Buffalo and for the thousands of visitors who will soon be able to enjoy a new energy in downtown Buffalo," said Barry E. Snyder, Sr., President of the Seneca Nation of Indians. "We expect to reach even greater heights when the new Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino opens in 2013."
The new casino will feature 800 slot machines and 16 table games, creating an energetic environment with a distinctive local flavor. The menu of the casino's Buffalo-centric restaurant will feature such signature items as chicken wings from Duff's Restaurant, beef on weck from Charlie the Butcher, Italian favorites from Ilio DiPaolo's, pizza from Franco's Pizza, desserts and pastries from Chrusciki Bakery and gelato from Sweet Melody's, all tasty local favorites made possible through partnerships with iconic local restaurants.
"The partnerships developed by Seneca Gaming Corporation extend far beyond the walls and operations of this new casino and our existing properties," said Robert Mele, chairman, Seneca Gaming Corporation. "As a significant local employer and a growing local business, our partners are on the construction sites, shop floors, warehouses, board rooms and living rooms throughout Western New York."
Although still in development, the new casino is already providing a significant economic impact to the area through the creation of approximately 600 construction period jobs with more than $32 million in wages and earnings. The impact is expected to be even more widespread across Western New York when the casino opens. Approximately 500 direct jobs will be created by the casino's operation, representing $52 million in annual payroll. Furthermore, the larger casino will mean additional business opportunities for local companies. Seneca Gaming Corporation projects that $170 million in direct and indirect spending with local companies will result from the procurement of goods and services for the new facility.
To help foster new and ongoing local vendor partnerships, Seneca Gaming Corporation has held a number of vendor fairs in recent months, giving local companies of all sizes the opportunity to introduce their products and services to the corporation and to learn what business opportunities may exist.
In addition to their local business and hiring efforts, the Seneca Nation and Seneca Gaming Corporation, through the Seneca Buffalo Creek Development Advisory Committee, earlier this year awarded $1 million to support a host of community development, beautification, lighting, infrastructure and other improvement projects in the neighborhood surrounding the Buffalo Creek Territory. A total of 17 organizations, businesses and community groups received funding.
Construction of the new Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino and attached parking garage is expected to continue through the summer, with a target opening in the fall. The project was designed by The Hnedak Bobo Group, a nationally-recognized leader in casino design. Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino opened in 2007 and has undergone two subsequent expansions, in 2008 and 2010. Today, the casino features 457 slot machines and attracts more than 800,000 visitors annually.
"There is unparalleled activity and excitement taking shape in the Inner Harbor, with the convergence of the Canalside, Webster Block and other development initiatives," said Seneca Gaming president and CEO Cathy Walker. "Adding a fully-developed Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino to that mix provides all of us an opportunity to continue to enhance the visitor experience in downtown Buffalo."
Photos courtesy of Seneca Gaming Corporation. Second photo: Seneca Nation President Barry E. Snyder, Sr. signing the beam before the ceremony.
:::shaking head:::
I know, what a pathetic and uninspired design plan. They hired an absolutely clueless urban planner. And, when it was evident how below-par the design was, the Porter Administration pushed ahead anyways. No way were they going to delay the awarding of $130 million in construction contracts until after the election!
All the while, they were paying the SNI Planner $140,000 a year, and they were paying the VP for Development at the Gaming Corporation (whose only job is to think up new development concepts) $500,000 a year.
Rather than a real reclaimation of this reservation, the interests of the Gaming Corp (like close parking for gamblers) trumped the interests of the Seneca people (like housing, storefronts, and the reestablishment of Buffalo's urban Indian enclave that largely emanated from that reservation). The gaming corp controls 100% of the Buffalo Creek Reservation, and not a single Indian lives there.
Imagine a real reclamation of the Buffalo Creek Reservation (which was originally stolen in the 1840s). Imagine primarily residential mixed use development packed with street-level storefronts owned and operated by individual Seneca artisans, niche shops, tobacco merchants, touristy museums, and community centers -- and a more boutique, less overbearing gaming venue. It would have been a way for ordinary individual Senecas to partake in the Nation's economic development -- able to enjoy the advantages of regulatory arbitrage. This would have had a much more broad based economic impact on the people of the Nation -- not just the tribal government.
A real reclaimation of a lost reservation would have been so much more profound an accomplishment for the Nation and for the Seneca People. Instead, the Nation pursued the Buffalo Creek territory with a monomaniacal purpose: gaming.
For all Indians, this type of behavior undermines the legitimacy of all of our long standing political claims -- it makes people think that we're all corrupt and all about casinos. It reinforces racial stereotypes and it exacerbates racial hostilities with surrounding communities and governments.
Those 9 acres are too valuable to be surface parking lot. You can sell anything off that land and it would be free of state taxes and regulations (gaming, tobacco, gasoline)
75% of the site is used for surface parking, which represents a huge opportunity cost.
If you really want to turn the cobblestone district into a major tourist destination, NYS should pass a medical marijunna bill. Then, the Senecas can buildout a red light district over which the Nation would enjoy civil regulatory jurisdiction. It would be great to have a drinking age of 19 as well, to capture some of that business that we're loosing to Niagara Falls, Canada.
In the whole, that 9 acre red light district could be a major anchor to get people downtown. It would make the entire city stronger.
You must be kidding...but it doesn't sound like you are.
Then again, with all the vote buying, withholding of funds, kicking residents out of their homes, and generally doing anything they can to make a buck for the politically connected with little to no concern for their people as a whole, the Seneca leaders are doing the best mob impersonations, so maybe they should just take that last step and go full-on old Vegas.
Obviously, I take issue with both the anti-Indian and anti-Italian sentiments in you comment.
In terms of vote buying: Look at the American political system and all of its corruption. Look at New York State's corruption. It takes some real ignorant elitism to be snooty and condescending towards an Indian tribe's political system. They just had a very robust election, and I don't think anyone can discredit the quality of their democracy. They have very high participation rates and a highly decentralized power structure.
As for withholding of funds: Wealthy gaming interests in the region have been conspiring to defraud an Indian tribe of an asset worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Those corporate gaming interests, politicians, and lobbyists have been conspiring to defraud the Seneca Nation of regional exclusivity rights purchased in a 2001 compact. They've successfully conspired to open casinos at Hamburg, Batavia, and in the Finger Lakes -- effectively a theft of hundreds of millions of dollars from a still vulnerable and impoverished people.
Jack Abramoff went to prison on the same charge for stealing a lot less, and in a far more subjective legal area. I would be surprised in the United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs doesn't launch an investigation, like they did into Abramoff. The conspiracy to defraud is just too blatant and too violative of the intent of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (particularly the area that says that if a state wants to profit from Indian gaming, the only way it could do so, because states are unable to tax tribes, is if the state sells the tribe a legitimate asset).
As for the Snyder Beach evictions: The Seneca Nation, like most Indian reservations, has enormous challenges in terms of housing and overcrowding with all of the pressures and aspirations of cultural retention, community cohesion, and the collective survival of their people. Also, banks don't offer mortgages to build houses on reservations (talk about red lining), and almost all of the land is owned by individuals, so it's difficult to increase housing supply for a very young and rapidly growing population. It's not like they have ample surpluses of land -- almost all of their land has been stolen already.
On what little of their land base that they have left -- yes, please get off of it.
This piece of garbage is an insult to our community.
At this point, I think our only hope is that they soon pursue new development projects atop the surface parking lots.