The American Indian tribe in the process of buying Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem is reportedly planning improvements for the property, including a new 300-room hotel tower, expected to cost $90 million.
The resort’s current 282-room hotel would remain, according to those reports.
PCI Gaming Authority doing business as Wind Creek Hospitality, an instrumentality of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, announced last March that it had “entered into a definitive agreement under which Wind Creek Hospitality will acquire the Sands Casino Resort in Bethlehem, Pa., for a total enterprise value of $1.3 billion.”
The closing of the transaction, expected later this year, possibly this spring, is subject to regulatory review and other customary closing conditions, according to Wind Creek Hospitality.
Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem, which opened 10 years ago, sits on old Bethlehem Steel land.
Wind Creek President and CEO James “Jay” Dorris told the Morning Call the company has $100 million earmarked for the No. 2 Machine Shop, which the newspaper called “a storied – but crumbling – industrial building that was once envisioned as a Bass Pro Shops location.”
Dorris told the newspaper a water park is among the ideas under review for the building, which is expected to house a nongambling attraction.
It is estimated the possible $190 million hotel and No. 2 Machine Shop expansion could provide hundreds of local jobs.
