Oneidas plan hotels, spa
Aug. 2, 2002

By R. PATRICK CORBETT
Observer-Dispatch

VERONA — Over the next two years, the Oneida Nation plans to build a 20-story hotel at the casino, a separate 100-suite hotel and a “world class” spa at the Shenendoah golf course, Nation officials announced Thursday.

The expansion — to include a 5,000-seat event center to attract large concerts, conventions and boxing matches — would create up to 1,000 more permanent jobs, Communications Director David Hollis said. The Nation currently employs more than 3,000 people with its Turning Stone Casino Resort and other businesses.

The 20-story hotel would be the tallest building between Syracuse and the Capital District.

Hollis said the Nation is seeking financing for the projects, but he would not say how much.

“The whole plan just re-emphasizes and builds on the golf resort theme,” Nation spokesman Jerry Reed said. The total value of the project could not be learned.

When Oneida Indian Nation Representative Ray Halbritter unveiled plans for two more championship golf courses earlier this year, he said that the tribe’s goal is to transform the resort from a casino with a golf club to a golf resort with a casino.

Hollis said the new resort hotels “aren’t going to be able to accommodate everyone all the time,” so there is room for private enterprise to get a piece of the action.

He said it would boost the private hotel/restaurant development, Verona Greens, proposed on a site across Route 365 from Turning Stone. The state recently cleared the way for an access road from the four-lane highway into the Verona Greens site.

“One thousand new jobs excites me,” Verona Town Supervisor David K. Reed said. The casino is located in Verona.

As a sovereign nation, the Oneida Nation does not have to consult with local governments about its plans or comply with local zoning or planning regulations.

But one concern is water supply. The town of Verona buys water from the city of Oneida and sells it to the resort at a profit.

Reed said Oneida city officials told him they have plenty of water to sell to the town, but the state Department of environmental Conservation has its doubts.

He said he will ask the town board Monday to hire an engineer to research the question and, if necessary, develop alternative sources of water.

“I believe right now we can supply the water (for the Turning Stone expansion),” he said.

Turning Stone had about four million visitors last year, Hollis said.

Reed said an Oneida Nation employee telephoned him at 5 p.m. Thursday to tell him about the expansion plan.

“Her call showed me their willingness to work with their neighbors,” he said. “I was pleased.”

Scott Peterman, president of the Upstate Citizens for Equality, said the planned expansion would only increase the Nation’s “illegal monopoly” in the area. He heads a landowners’ group that contends that the Oneida nation uses its tax-free status to squeeze out private businesses.

Hollis said such critics are talking “hogwash”.

“Serious businesses want to partner with us,” he said.

The Oneida Nation expansion plan also reflects “a shift to the tourism economy in the region,” he said.

The proposed expansion has no implications for the Oneida Nation’s ongoing research into the possibility of opening a second casino in the Catskill Mountain counties of Ulster or Sullivan, he said.

Hollis said the Catskills and Western New York, where several more Indian casinos could open in the next few years, are “a whole different market,” from the one being targeted by the local expansion, so the Oneida Nation is not concerned about competition from those future venues.