Architect hired fo Churchrock casino
Financial details still being hashed out

The Navajo tribe is in the process of hiring an architect for their new casino, to be located in Churchrock. [Independent File Photo]

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — While the Office of the Controller and the Navajo Gaming Enterprise are hashing out details of a loan agreement so the Nation can fund construction of its first casino, the Enterprise’s board of directors has approved an architect for the project and a request for proposals on a general contractor went out Tuesday.

Controller Mark Grant told Budget and Finance Committee at a meeting Tuesday morning that his office had an initial meeting with the Gaming Enterprise and went over the loan agreement. Enterprise CEO Robert Winter had numerous issues that he wanted corrected, Grant said.

“We went back and took his comments and looked at some of them and tried to meet him halfway. We sent those amendments back to him and he was agreeable.

Sunday he sent a list of other items that he would like us to look at that he feels we may have left out from the original review, so we’re going to get our group together and review those and respond to him again.

“Once he gets those, he will decide whether he wants to accept the loan agreement or not, and then he will go to his board and get it approved.” Once that is done, the investment committee will have to sign off on it, as well as B&F. “At that point, we can start the disbursements,” Grant said.

“The Controller’s Office is fully prepared to sign the loan today, however, we continue to receive objections from the Gaming Enterprise on the loan itself. We’re willing to work with the Enterprise as much as we are able to, but then at some point we’re going to end up saying, ‘That’s enough. We can’t soften this loan up anymore.’

“Then it becomes ‘take it or leave it’ at that point, and it becomes a decision the Enterprise has to make. I would say, though, that at 11 percent, this loan is very attractive to anyone,” he said.

In a telephone interview Tuesday afternoon, Winter said he received the loan document last Monday and after going through it, suggested some changes. “I don’t see anything that is nonresolvable, but there are some issues related to certain portions of it that may or may not even be necessary on a loan of this type.

“Lawyers tend to pick at those things, and I’m a lawyer,” he said. “But there’s nothing in it that is problematic to the extent that we won’t come to an agreement.”

JCJ Architecture of Hartford Conn., which has both hospitality and gaming experience, with offices in Los Angeles and Phoenix, was chosen from among nine firms to design the casino, Winter said.

They’ve built and worked on the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Excalibur, Luxor, Harrah’s Cherokee Casino, the Seminole’s Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Fla., Gila River Casino, Isle of Capri casinos, the Flamingo Hotel and others. They’ve also worked on numerous hotels and restaurants, largely in Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

From the nine firms responding to the RFP, it was broken down to three.

“Each of those three firms were interviewed and based on the rating system, this one came out ahead of the others,” Winter said. All three were national casino architects.

The casino proposed for the industrial park in Church Rock “will be constructed in a way to give credence to the cultural aspects of the Navajo Nation,” he said. The architectural firm is in the process of doing its preliminary planning and a kickoff meeting is set for Feb. 25.

Engineering surveys have been completed for both the soil and topography. “Preliminary discussion with the engineers indicate there are no real serious problems with either soil or geological concerns,” Winter said. The Enterprise has received more than 300 job applications and is in the process of hiring a director of Human Resources.

Winter and Grant also have been meeting with banks and getting proposals together. “I have meetings all next week with potential financing entities,” he said.

In addition to the Church Rock site, studies have been done in the Farmington, Flagstaff, Gallup and Cameron areas, as well as at some chapters along the Interstate 40 corridor. “The one area that was always No. 1 was Flagstaff. The second area was Gallup; the third area was Farmington,” he said, “so we did in-depth financial analysis on all three areas.”

The next time B& F meets, he expects to have in-hand a development plan for those sites that will outline what should be done, “assuming money is available.”

“Nahata dziil on the I-40 corridor is another that we’ve looked at and we think deserves some further analysis.

We are in the process of commissioning an in-depth study of that area,” he said.