CNY Business Journal (1996+): Tower Hotel soars over Upstate New York

VERONA - It rises 253 feet into the air and will be the tallest building between Syracuse and Albany.

It's the "Tower Hotel at Turning Stone," one of the centerpiece projects of the Oneida Indian Nation's $308-million expansion of its Turning Stone Casino Resort. The two-year construction project, which at its peak required the manpower of 500 workers, officially will be complete when the Tower's first guests spend the night Oct. 1.

According to the Tower Hotel's Web site, reservations - at least at first - will be hard to come by. All 266 guest rooms, seven luxury VIP suites, and 14 additional VIP suites with panoramic views of the Verona countryside of the 200,000-square-foot complex are sold out for the first few nights.

The Tower Hotel features a full-floor fitness area with a 65-foot swimming pool. The top floor includes private fine-dining areas, two private lounges, a hospitality suite, and outdoor terraces. The building is connected to the resort's new, 2,400car garage, indoor-events center, and the Winter Garden atrium.

"This project has transformed the [complex] into a destination resort and the leading golf resort of the Northeast," says Mark Emery, director of media relations.

Emery says the project has had a ripple effect on Upstate's construction industry. "Many of the subcontractors are located in greater Central New York," says Emery, who notes that the resort's expansion project also includes the Winter Garden, two championship golf courses, a parking garage, and a 98 all-suite lodge - all of which already are open. A luxury spa will be finished in 2005, he adds.

Another centerpiece of the project is a 5,100-seat events center, which fills a critical gap in the Mohawk Valley's business community. The resort already operates a 2,000-seat events center. The larger center will focus on association meetings, trade shows, bigger sporting events, and bigger concerts.

"As groups come to visit the resort, we're working with them on other locations they can visit while they're here," Emery says. "If they want to do something in Syracuse, our group sales [department] will work with them, or if they say, 'We'd like to do something in Utica or Rome,' we'll work with them."