A recent press release indicated that the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation broke ground on a new casino in the Phoenix vicinity. Construction on the multi-million dollar project will commence late summer and is expected to be completed by spring 2020.

The new casino will have 166,341 square feet. There will be many additional amenities for guests to enjoy including a larger casino with a garden court, specialty high end dining and a sports bar with an entertainment stage. Thalden Boyd Emery Architects, W.E. O’Neil, and Kitchell Construction have been named as the project team.

“We break ground on Friday, June 29th 2018 on a new casino and open a new chapter in the modern history of the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation. Our tribe has overcome many challenges just to be here today. Our path has been difficult, but the obstacles we’ve endured have only made us stronger. We may be the smallest tribe in the Valley, but we built the first high stakes bingo hall in the Phoenix area three decades ago and today we are taking another huge leap forward. This exciting project will set a new standard for quality entertainment in the Northeast Valley while providing economic security to our tribal government. We’re thankful that our past success enables us to make this investment in the future of our tribe and our region,” said Bernadine Burnette, Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation Tribal Council President.

The Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation is a 950-member Native American tribe that calls Central Arizona’s upper Sonoran Desert home. Located to the northeast of Phoenix within Maricopa County, Arizona, the 40-square mile reservation is a small part of the ancestral territory of the once nomadic Yavapai people, who hunted and gathered food in a vast area of Arizona’s desert lowlands and mountainous Mogollon Rim country.