Article Tag: has_thumbnail

Tribal gaming is the perpetual Rubik’s Cube for the nation’s leading designers and architects.

Its varied look—entailing both subtle enhancements and overt design statements—mirrors the layered complexity of the world’s largest-selling toy. Designers figuratively turn the blocks, flip them, change colors and tinker endlessly to solve the financial puzzles of a multibillion-dollar industry.

More than 400 tribally owned facilities generate about one quarter of the nation’s gaming revenue, with operations ranging from small and intimate to monolithic powerhouse.

Tribal leadership is equally varied. Some operators make quick decisions. Others have large chains of command with conflicting views over property design message. Some tribes advertise their culture; others minimize it. Gaming houses look different on either coast and in the Native American heartland.

All of this must somehow blend into construction, on time and on budget, especially now. For the first time ever, Indian gaming revenues slid last year (slightly), meaning that tribes must increasingly blend heritage with sound gaming and hospitality principles.

So how do new trends in culture, finances, marketing and the customer base determine the design and direction of tribal government gaming?

It’s like asking the Pope about religion: Everyone has a different opinion.

Design flexibility is most essential because it enhances creativity and separates them from cheaper counterparts with cookie-cutter approaches.

Tribal properties will spend millions to make a statement, but the question is, “what statement,” and “where on the property will it go?”

The Heritage Home Run

Chief Boyd, a Native American and co-founder of Thalden Boyd Emery, says his company works with 87 tribes and 130 casinos, at last count. Gaming has twofold significance for Boyd, a principal of the company, based in Las Vegas, Tulsa and St. Louis. Many of its tribal projects are in Oklahoma.

As a Cherokee Nation member, Boyd is acutely aware of improving the lives of the tribal community. The 50-year architectural and design veteran has seen a rise in the living standards of Native Americans in the Oklahoma region. He proudly notes that advances in health care have just begun pushing the life expectancy of Indians beyond 59 years.

Boyd understands the need for tribal elders to make decisions, even if that means a deliberate process followed by an abrupt change. Oklahoma tribes often maintain more individuality than brand-driven counterparts on the East and West Coasts.

“Because cultural expression varies from tribe to tribe, what you generally end up with is a modern facility with a lot of heritage woven into it,” Boyd says. “You may, for instance, want to be sensitive about what type of carpet you will select, because that is going to be walked on. There are different feelings about that. We follow the lead of the tribe we are working with.”

A typical blend of these concepts may produce tribal expression in the ceiling and the floor and a gaming center focused on the action. Architects must also reconcile scores of opinions.

“When we worked on the original Potawatomi casino in Milwaukee, we were involved with 84 elders,” Boyd says. “A lot of what we designed came from them. In the center of this casino, one of the things they found exciting was the expression of the four seasons. Not only can it be culturally pleasing, but it can help the customer who wins find it easy to go back and find the machine he was on. He can line it up by what season the machine was in.

“The impact was huge. We were told that for a time it was the highest-drop casino in the world, getting $1,000 a day per slot.”

In this case, too many cooks did not spoil the broth. Architects must not only listen to their clients, but maximize natural geographic advantages. The Art Deco area of Tulsa, Oklahoma, enhanced by an oil boom, created factors that led to the formation of successful casinos, Boyd says. Many Cherokee casinos combine tribal culture with Las Vegas excitement.

They also embraced innovation. The Building Information Model (BIM) has become a significant part of the presentation process for big projects over the past seven years. It replaced hand drafting with electronic models, an effective tool for tribes which often change their design plans.

The BIM allows clients to visualize their expected changes quickly and even walk through a 3D model. This is an important benefit, allowing tribal executive members, staff, architects and a slew of structural, mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineers to get on the same page. It enables everyone to witness the impact of changes before they occur and therefore make quick, uniform decisions.

Corporate Sophistication

Tribal culture occasionally forges its own branding. Memphis-based Hnedak-Bobo Group works on scores of tribal gaming projects. It garnered the 2007 Best Casino Design under $200 million, as recognized by G2E’s Casino Design Awards, for Riverwind Casino in Norman, Oklahoma.

More recently, Hnedak Bobo showed its diversity in creating two variations upon a client’s theme, via the Four Winds in Hartford, Connecticut, and New Buffalo, Michigan.

The New Buffalo property opened in April 2011 and Hartford is under construction.

 “The Four Winds Hartford Casino design is a multi-phased master plan with a first-phase 500-slot casino constructed on a 15-acre site,” principal Dike Bacon explains. “This first-phase design and construction was successfully completed on schedule (14 months from design start to construction end) and was completed on budget (52,000 square feet and $40 million all in).”

Bacon says the design intent of the new facility was to expand the brand of the tribe’s New Buffalo model. The design basis for the new facility in Hartford was to maintain a similar palette of materials, characteristic of Four Winds New Buffalo, without creating an exact copy of that first facility.  

“We used materials such as stone, copper and red cedar to detail the exterior façade of the gaming facility,” Bacon explains. “A 50-foot-tall stone chimney sits adjacent to the three-lane porte cochere, acting as a landmark for casino guests. The tall icon feature helps to promote the Four Winds brand, as well as signify the tribe’s cultural identity as the ‘keepers of the fire.’ Other details such as the round red cedar log columns at the porte cochere and the standing seam metal mansard roofs on the east façade were designed to help link the property to the first Four Winds Casino in New Buffalo.”

This was one case where the tribe openly celebrates its heritage via the design. That gave Hnedak Bobo free rein to maximize the tribe’s identity.

“The interior design incorporates a range of significant tribal motifs and symbolism—from N/S/E/W elements informing the directional placement of building elements, to important animals such as the river otter and bear that are integrated into highly visible custom-designed light fixtures and fireplace elements,” he says. “Within the chimney tower, located between the entry foyer and the retail shop, is an ‘eternal flame’ hearth room for guest lounging, featuring a 360-degree circular fire pit covered by a copper hood, holding further symbolism of the tribe’s cultural heritage. The tribe was the first to use copper metal in tool and jewelry making.”

A Grand Design

Tom Hoskens viewed the evolution of tribal pride into corporate muscle. His Minnesota-based Cuningham Group jumped out of the box by servicing seven Grand Casino properties at the advent of Indian gaming in the late 1980s. The incorporation of partners like Hard Rock at the Pueblo Isleta in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Harrah’s in Cherokee, North Carolina, propelled several of his projects to prominence.

Harrah’s Cherokee, nestled at the foot of the Great Smoky Mountains, provides an excellent example. The Cuningham Group has already been awarded a prestigious HOSPY (given by the Network of Executive Women in Hospitality) award, for its work on a $630 million-plus expansion scheduled for completion in the summer. Cuningham won it for Suite Design and Hotel and for having the best hotel lobby in the country.

 “We have a philosophy of the metaphor in that each building should tell a story,” he says. “For the Cherokee property, the original metaphor was in the fact that this is a mountain lodge, perfectly placed in the Great Smoky Mountains. It is a wonderful site right alongside a mountain stream with trout fishing. This modern lodge reflects the Great Smoky Mountains and even has soft curves on all the rooftops.

“We modeled the casino after the curving lines of the Great Smoky Mountains. The tribes grew up in the mountains. They have assimilated nature into what they do; it is a part of them. The casino has four major parts. You have Mountain Breeze, Woodland Moon, Rivers and Valley and Earth Water. Each has a zone, each has different colors and each is separate visually from the other.”

The Harrah’s branding enables financial muscle and flexibility for the designer or architect. High-end name restaurants, convention centers and additional hotel rooms all fall under this category. Hoskens says the grand finale of the five-year expansion will be a magnificent rotunda, with eight large trees within it, waterfalls, an extraordinary light show and a number of other technological components. And what about 10-15 years hence?

The tweaking, years down the road, could entail changing the way the water looks coming down the glass, he says, or the operators may want to add a bar area. Carpets change all the time. But the exterior of the building would not.

Hoskens notes that tribal properties, just like non-Native American interests, are expanding into resorts.

Flexibility Meets The Future

Bergman, Walls and Associates, based in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Ho-Chi-Minh City, has operated for 18 years and employs 50 people. Its Snoqualmie (Wash-ington) tribal gaming project garnered an Annual Excellence Award from the Wall and Ceiling Bureau in 2009.

While noting the diverse nature of tribal gaming preferences, the company has seen some subtle, relatively recent shifts.

Top executives Joel Bergman and Brad Schulz, who account for nearly 50 years experience, say those tribes are upgrading their dining areas, seeking more live entertainment venues and trying to position themselves against increasing competition. The architecture and design provide the environment for them to pursue and maintain market share. In a constantly changing industry, tribes need game plans both for now and in another decade.

“If a property goes 10 years without being modified, you’re doing pretty well,” according to Schulz, who was elevated to a fellow by the American Institute of Architects in 2010. “Properties have to reinvent themselves anyway, more than just with a new coat of paint. If you have been the only property in town, you know that people would jump over a couple hoops to come to your property. Now, with so much competition, you may want to guard against the casino five miles away being the kinder, gentler property, so to speak.

“So we design for flexibility, allowing things that can change easily. You won’t be limited, for example, by structural elements that can’t be moved. The buildings are open.”

Both architects see a slow transformation of the prototypical gaming facility over the next few years. Fewer machines. More electronically driven action via devices like iPads, utilized by players at the pool or another remote portion of the property.

“Tribes are going to start asking for more lounges to be placed throughout their facilities,” says Bergman, who garnered a Sarno Lifetime Achievement Award for casino design in 2006 at G2E. “They will want to have them placed throughout the facility, helping to attract a younger crowd. We are going to be seeing more gaming lounges. That will attract a younger crowd at night and on weekends, but at the same time the tribes will have to be able to do that without alienating a good segment of their older customer base.

 “There will always be a segment of the population that wants to sit at the sports book and scream for their bets alongside other people, but we are heading for a time when the last of the traditional ‘action’ will be at the pit. As younger players come in and are more adept at the iPad and iPhone, this will cause a change in the makeup of the properties.”

 
Seminole Agenda

Ken Kulas, principal for Las Vegas-based Cleo Design, witnessed his own version of tribal gaming evolution. Along with Ann Fleming, he runs an 11-year-old company that grew in step with the Seminole Tribe. Cleo Design helped build the original Hard Rock casinos in Tampa and Hollywood, Florida, followed with several renovations, and now designs a Tampa expansion entailing restaurants, bars and larger gaming space.

The parties have learned together.

“Our first encounters were very surprising in that ‘tribal’ design influences were not requested,” Kulas says. “With the exception of ownership branding, the design directive was to be more ‘Las Vegas’ in influence first. As projects progressed, we typically found ourselves adding more subtle tribal signatures or retail venues that consolidate education of the heritage.”

Cleo Design has been named in Interior Design magazine’s Top 200 for the last six years. Kulas says some things don’t change regardless of the client. Every property needs an arrival statement, for instance, and large open spaces require an over-the-top feature to set the facility’s design tone. Kulas considers the large space a great opportunity to use iconic forms or imagery, whether abstracted or literally interpreted.

While tribal properties face similar challenges to non-tribal facilities, they offer one intangible.

 “Even though the cash-flow support may come from within rather than traditional banking entities, committees and current revenues (pending the current success of the gaming floor), all are deciding factors to the level and speed of the design and construction,” Kulas says. “Indian gaming, however, sometimes has the advantage of being located in a unique geographical area that has less competition. There may be a less of a risk factor in the development of gaming institutions with remote locations being ‘the only game in town.’”

Seeing The Contrast

SOSH Architects, based in Atlantic City and New York, has worked in several Native American hospitality projects in the Northeast, Southwest and Northwest. Its clients-served list reads like a who’s-who in Indian Country: the Mohegan Tribe and the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation in Connecticut; the Seneca Nation of Indians in Buffalo and Niagara Falls; the Seminole Nation of Indians in Florida; the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians and the 29 Palms Band of Mission Indians, both in Palm Springs; the Cachil Dehe Band of Wintun Indians in Sacramento; the Gila River Indian Community in Phoenix.

Partner Tom O’Connor sees many examples of the three major tribal design philosophies.

 “Any differences that exist between tribal and non-tribal design are as much related to the story that is being told by the project as they are tied into the differences between corporate and tribal owners,” he says.

“Clients usually want a design to express specific goals that relate either to brand, culture, customer or locale; and often it’s a combination of these factors. We also see tribes play against type, by requesting their cultural history not be the defining element.

“Finally, there has been such an integration of non-tribal executives into tribal gaming positions that the lines have been further blurred between tribal and non-tribal gaming design goals.”

Ongoing or recently completed projects for SOSH include Revel in Atlantic City, premiering in May 2012; several projects for the Seminole Hard Rock Casinos; the Town Center at Fantasy Spring Golf Resort; and Spotlight 29 Casino Resort Expansion in California. The success of the Spotlight 29 Casino and the collaboration that resulted in the property’s stunning design produced a Sarno Awards first prize for casino design in 2007.

Even if there were no tribes in the United States, adopting appropriate legal rules for internet gambling would still be a difficult endeavor. To begin with, the major problem is distributing power between the federal and state governments. Although there are a few helpful guideposts for resolving the issue, for the most part it is completely unsettled legal territory.

The 50 state legislatures have traditionally enjoyed a constitutional right to make and enforce their own laws for gambling that takes place within their territory, and none of the states do so in precisely the same way. Nevada, for example, has authorized literally hundreds of gaming operators in its territory. Twenty-one other states also license and regulate casinos, but unlike Nevada, most states (except New Jersey and Mississippi) statutorily restrict the number of casinos to a small number.

Theoretically, the regulatory decisions of each state should be based on its citizens’ value judgments about the appropriateness of gambling in their communities. And a significant factor in making these decisions is the recognition that gambling is a unique sort of activity which creates no product of tangible value, but nonetheless can exert great social costs on the community, including addiction and crime, if not managed properly.

The state legislatures should maintain control over these decisions even when gambling takes place on the internet rather than in brick-and-mortar casinos. States like Utah might very well always continue to insist that all gambling be prohibited in their territory. But more importantly, among the states that will dare to allow gambling on the internet, there will be differences in terms of precisely how it should be regulated.

For example, states may disagree on what sort of consumer safeguards, such as betting limits and advertising restrictions,

will be necessary to protect communities from the social costs

of gambling. Other substantial considerations include how

many and what type of entities should be permitted to operate gambling on the internet, and what sort of tax rate will be acceptable.

Furthermore, these decisions will be influenced heavily by circumstances that are unique to each state. The presence of organizations with vested interests in the decisions, such as gambling companies and other informed groups, will be particularly important to the process. In 28 of the states, this includes Indian tribes.

Power Struggle

The unique status of tribes compounds the crisis of distributing power between the federal and state governments. Legally, tribes resemble states in important ways. Tribes generally enjoy the freedom to make and enforce their own laws, even if those laws differ from the laws of the state in which the tribe is located. But there are also important ways in which tribes are very different from states.

Tribes began experimenting with gambling in the late 1970s with games of bingo. Although the game of bingo was legal in the states in which the tribes who ran the games were located, the tribes did not completely comply with the laws of the states. For example, some of the tribes operated games for higher stakes than would otherwise be permitted by the states. Over time, some of the tribes grew bolder with regard to the wagering opportunities they provided on their territory.

From the states’ perspective, oversight over Indian gaming was essential because the great majority of customers were citizens of the states, which meant that the great majority of the social costs of gambling were absorbed by the states. Meanwhile, the tribes incurred few of the social costs of gambling and delivered no tax revenue to the states to justify or offset those costs.

A series of conflicts between states and tribes culminated in 1987 with the U.S. Supreme Court case California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians. In deciding the Cabazon case, the Supreme Court relied on an earlier case which held that the states have no power to apply gambling regulations to the tribes. The court noted, however, that the states could obtain the power to impose regulations on the tribes if the U.S. Congress were to delegate the necessary power to the states. The reason for this is that the U.S. Constitution empowers the federal government rather than the states with authority to enter legal relations with the tribes.

The logical result is that the states only have power to interact with tribes to the degree that Congress has delegated its own power to the states. Hence, the court ruled in favor of the Cabazon tribe because Congress had not delegated power to the states to administer gambling regulations on the tribes.

And so, one year later, as an immediate reaction to the Cabazon case, Congress enacted the National Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 as a means of delegating some of its power to the states. The statute was enacted as an attempt to

balance the states’ interest in controlling the social costs of

gambling against the tribes’ rights to sovereignty and economic development.

Internet Grounds

Today, Indian gaming is a $26.5 billion-per-year industry, regulated every bit as thoroughly as the state-licensed commercial casino industry. Overall, 237

tribes operate 442 casinos of varying sizes within 28 of the states.

Refusing to allow tribes to participate in internet gambling is not likely to severely harm their land-based establishments or the jobs they support. After all, internet gambling has already been flourishing in America despite its official prohibition. Simply introducing new state-approved operators into the market therefore seems unlikely to dramatically shift action away from Indian casinos.

But then again, since legislation on average will make it easier for Americans to establish accounts with internet operators and to feel safer about the funds they deposit, then the amount of wagering on the internet is likely to increase, so in that regard, there is a real chance that some dollars that might otherwise have been spent on Indian gaming will instead be spent on the internet. But there is also the chance that legalization of internet gambling could stimulate more land-based gaming as well. For many players, the internet is a way to practice, but it cannot replicate the thrill of playing and socializing at a casino.

The real question is not whether tribes will be hurt if they cannot compete, but rather whether they are entitled to compete on the internet with operators in the states. Of course, tribes already do possess the power to license and regulate internet gambling, but because of their small populations, the benefit of doing so is not very attractive unless they can reach outside their territory and into the states.

In some cases, there are compelling reasons why a state should select a tribal operator to become one of the state’s licensed internet operators. In Connecticut, for example, there are two large tribal casinos but no state-licensed casinos. These two casinos can therefore present a good case that they are the most competent prospective operators because of their already-existing relationship with the state and its citizens.

Meanwhile, in California, a coalition of 29 tribal poker operators has banded together for the purposes of competing for one single operating license in the state. Of course, if any of these tribes were to obtain licenses, they would be expected to deliver tax revenue to the state.

The few examples of legislation that has been introduced so far in the states generally give preference to entities that are already located within a state. Nevada’s interactive gaming statute, for example, only allows an entity to apply for a license if the entity is a “resort hotel” that already possesses a non-restricted gaming license. However, there really is no particular reason grounded in law why a state must prefer to award licenses to entities that already have a presence in the state.

If an entity from another state or tribe or country is a better candidate, then it would probably be in the state’s best interest to select that other entity rather than a local one, provided the foreign entity establishes necessary connections in the state. Hence, there is no legal reason why the coalition of California tribes should be barred from applying for a license in another state if they can show they are the most suitable operator and are willing to establish necessary connections in the state.

Jump In The Pool

While states may be perfectly capable of conducting their internet gaming markets in isolation, the ability to pool players together from multiple states presents the opportunity for better multi-player games such as poker and hence the potential for higher revenue. One way this could happen is through negotiated state-to-state and state-to-tribe agreements. Another way is through an enactment of Congress establishing minimum standards for participation in an interstate network.

In the event a federal statute were to be enacted, the fair and easy solution would be to permit tribes to participate in the interstate network to the same degree that the states and their operators can. In that scenario, tribal regulators would be permitted to license and regulate their own operators in conformity with the minimum standards of the federal statute.

Certain federal legislators already seem poised to make sure that Indian gaming interests are an active part of the discussion and will be dealt with fairly by any prospective federal legislation. The leaders of both committees who have conducted hearings on internet gambling—Rep. Mary Bono Mack of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade; and Senator Daniel Akaka of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs—insist this must be the case.

Incidentally, the one already-existing federal agency with any experience regulating gambling is the National Indian Gaming Commission, which was created pursuant to the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. The agency currently shares the responsibility of overseeing gaming on tribal land with regulatory bodies local to the tribe.

If the federal government is to assume new duties with regard to gambling on the internet, it might make good sense to delegate those duties to the agency that already has relevant experience. And based on its purpose and experience, there is good reason to believe the agency would make a fair guardian of tribal rights to participate.