Coeur D’Alene Casino Resort Expansion Project Accelerates Toward Spring Opening
The Home of Highly Acclaimed Circling Raven Golf Club in Northern Idaho Panhandle to Add Luxurious Hotel Rooms, Spa, Gourmet Steakhouse and Outdoor Amphitheater
The massive expansion at the Coeur d'Alene Casino Resort is under budget and well-ahead of schedule and officials expect the $85-million project to be completed in the spring of 2011.
The project, which broke ground in June of last year, will add two new four-story buildings and nearly 100 opulent hotel rooms. The resort will now be home to 300 rooms overall, including two new wings overlooking the resort's highly acclaimed championship golf course, Circling Raven Golf Club. The Gene Bates-design has received numerous best-in-class awards since opening in 2004, including GOLF magazine's Top-100 "Courses You Can Play" and Golfweek's "Best Casino Courses."
In addition, the expansion will include a centerpiece pub area called Yap-Keehn-Um (which means "gathering place" in the Coeur d'Alene Tribe's Salishan language), a gourmet steakhouse, a fitness center, a 15,000 square-foot deluxe spa and pool as well as a vast, 10-acre "front yard" that will offer a natural amphitheater for concerts and other outdoor events.
"The amenities we're going to offer will match or surpass any we currently know of in the Pacific Northwest," said CDA Casino Resort CEO David LaSarte Meeks. "The spa will be world class. Our new hotel wings will provide every comfort and luxury of a five-star property. We will host groups and events both indoors and out and in ways never before available in the Inland Northwest. We are dramatically expanding the resort and dramatically expanding the experience that our guests can expect at the Coeur d'Alene Casino Resort."
The Coeur d'Alene Tribe – which is already one of North Idaho's largest employers – is set to hire an additional 200 workers after the expansion project is completed.
"The Coeur d'Alene Casino Resort is as strong an example as there is for Indian Gaming and what it is meant to accomplish," added Coeur d'Alene Tribe Chairman Chief Allan. "We have made promises. We have kept every one of them. In fact, we've gone far beyond our promises to create a better quality of life for so many people. Overall, the tribe may be the biggest employer in North Idaho. But we want more than that. We believe we are the best employer in the region and we are committed to remaining so."
