Multi-million Catskills Casino project expected to revive town

"Twenty years ago this was a hopping town," said Sherwood, a worker at the Concord Resort Hotel Golf Maintenance Center, which is all that remains of the landmark hotel that closed in the late 1990s. "The economy revolved around these hotels and once they were gone, that was it."

Thompson Town Supervisor William Rieber, who was eight years old when his family moved to the area in 1961, said a Friday night in Monticello meant shoulder-to-shoulder crowds on Broadway and up to 2,000 guests checking into the Concord for the weekend.

"Nobody growing up in this generation has any idea as to what a crowded highway is or a busy street corner is in Monticello," Rieber lamented to the Daily News.

Rieber and others around Monticello, however, believe that things are about to change thanks to the decision by state officials last week to award a casino to faded Borscht Belt resort community, fulfilling a decades-long quest to bring gambling to the region.

The US$ 630 million Montreign Casino Resort project is planned for  near the site of the demolished Concord and will include an 18-story casino, hotel and entertainment complex with 61 gaming tables and 2,150 slot machines.

Montreign is also the focal point of a larger, US$ 750 million real estate development, dubbed Adelaar, that includes a water park, golf course, shopping complexes and residential homes.

Unemployment in Sullivan County, which includes Monticello and the town of Thompson, was at 6.4% in November, above the statewide average of 5.9%.

"When the Concord closed, people were devastated," said Dennis Rivera, 43, who worked as a waiter at the hotel from 1990 to 1998.

"People were crying," Rivera said. "This town depended on it. Hearing that the casino is coming is great. When I hear,d I was like 'What?! You're kidding me! Yes! Yes!' Everyone is excited."

"It's a good thing for the county and it's been a long time coming," said Linda Salomon, 62, who works at the Monticello Diner, one of the few town businesses still doing well. "For twenty-something years Sullivan County has been pushing for gambling. It's a relief."

Catskills residents share those concerns but believe the wider array of attractions planned in the Adelaar project will be the difference maker.

The casino also will benefit from being less than a three-hour drive from New York City, said Prof. Clyde Barrow, a gaming expert at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

"Part of the key is the extent to which it can be woven into the overall fabric of the tourism industry of the Catskills," Barrow said. "It can be one more attraction that can lure you to the region."

Randy Resnick, 49, a lifelong Catskills resident and restaurant owner, believes Adelaar will do just that, becoming what he called a "casort - a casino resort."