In Pope County

Arkansas: Cherokees move forward with $225M resort after favorable turn in ballot initiative dispute

Chuck Garrett, Cherokee Nation Businesses' CEO.
2022-08-22
Reading time 2:59 min

After a constitutional amendment was struck from Arkansas’ November 8 general election ballot, the way has now been cleared for Cherokee Nation Businesses to expedite work on a $225 million casino resort on newly purchased land in Pope County. 

The amendment, which would have removed the county as one of the four legal in-state sites for casino gambling, will not be voted on for two reasons. One of them is that the Arkansas Board of Election Commissioners rejected its ballot title. And secondly, the party supporting it failed to submit enough signatures to qualify. 

Two weeks ago, Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston told the anti-casino group Fair Play for Arkansas that the initiative was dead. CEO of Catoosa, Oklahoma-based Cherokee Nation Businesses Chuck Garrett told Arkansas Business it was "an important hurdle for us to overcome, and we believe this issue is put to bed."

CNB completed a $35 million land acquisition in the county last month, and is “continuing to make a tremendous amount of progress on the actual project," Garrett stated, and added it has been “a lot of work."


Legends Resort Casino rendering

Between January and July, CNB consolidated parcels from a dozen sellers on 182 acres north of Interstate 40 between the Weir Road and Bradley Cove Road exits. Legends Resort and Casino will be built there. 

But while Russellville Planning Commission approved the Legends Resort and Casino's zoning and land-use plan last month, court challenges linger in Pulaski County over an Arkansas Racing Commission decision to reverse the granting of a license in favor of the Cherokees in Nov. 2021. The commission’s 3-2 vote overturned a decision that awarded the last of Mississippi’s four casino licenses to a competitor - Gulfside Casino Partnership.   

Gulfside was granted a license in 2020, but CNB then challenged its letter of local support, which was signed by Pope County Judge Jim Ed Gibson 10 days before his term expired in 2018. In May 2019, when the license application process began, Ben Cross was elected county judge and, as an active official, his approval was mandatory. Gibson's was no longer valid, as approval could not come from "a former or retired county judge.”

Cross is now satisfied election officials dismissed the ballot title as misleading, dealing a major blow to Fair Play for Arkansas. The group had raised more than $3.8 million for the 2022 initiative, all donated by the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, which will face competition from a western Arkansas casino. 

A campaign against the Fair Play effort, the Arkansas Tourism Alliance Ballot Committee, was led by Little Rock lawyer and voter initiative expert David Couch. It raised $1.3 million through July, mostly from Cherokee Nation Businesses. 

Cross stated his constituents will benefit from the casino’s 1,200 slot machines, 32 table games and 200 hotel rooms, which he hopes will attract players as well as businesses. 

As reported by Arkansas Business, Cross said that this would not be a temporary building with slot machines but a “$225 million destination resort," and described it as a “catalyst for growth that has not been realized in Pope County for decades, and it will increase tax revenue."

CNB’s ongoing legal challenges now focus on license reversals. Gulfside is challenging the racing commission in Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox’s court, and Citizens for a Better Pope is suing the panel in Pope County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen’s court. 

“The latest suit was filed by John Clifton Goodin versus the Racing Commission,” Cross said. “Those are companion cases using the same attorney, and Judge Griffen is expected to rule on those back to back on Sept. 16.” 

Garrett predicted that the courts would "see through attempts to delay and confuse matters.” Meanwhile, work and plans progress in Russellville. “There’s this perception that everything is at a standstill until every last legal challenge is dealt with, and that’s not the case,” Garrett noted. “Once the cases are resolved, we can write a check for $38 million.”

This was in reference to the $38.8 million portion of an economic development agreement with the county that would split the money between the city, fire district and local agencies. Annual donations of $2 million, adjusted for inflation, will follow.

Tax payments to the county are expected to start at $4.3 million a year, and with the creation of about 1,750 jobs, the project is projected to have an economic impact of $3.5 billion over 10 years.

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