Public Record, The: Fantasy Springs Resort plans Dec. 21 opening

The June 16 collapse of part of the Fantasy Springs Special Events Center superstructure hasn't delayed the scheduled opening of the facility on the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians Reservation near Indio.

Although Fantasy Springs Resort Casino CEO James McKennon declines to state what may have caused the collapse, it appears not to have been faulty engineering of the steel truss supporting lower and higher roof sections that failed during construction. "We expect the same engineered truss to be delivered July 21," he says. "It would bring us back on schedule for a Dec. 21 opening." He further says the various parties (the tribe, engineers, contractors and insurers) have not agreed to the results" of investigations by forensic experts, but that "responsible parties will be held accountable." In the meantime, construction has continued. "A substantial amount of steel has gone up since," McKennon says.

The special events center is but one component of a project costing just under $200 million.

The first component was expansion and renovation of the casino, including the addition of 15,000 square feet of bingo space, a new table games area, remodeling of the satellite wagering room and a new bar with 12 plasmascreen televisions.

Connecting the casino to a new 12-story, 250-room hotel will be a-concourse featuring a* 250-seat buffet. McKennon says the buffet could more accurately be called "action cooking," where food will be prepared at stations featuring Italian, Chinese, Mexican, American and Brazilian cuisine; there also will be separate salad bar and dessert sections. The upper level of the concourse will house a coffeehouse and a bistro serving light American cuisine for lunch and dinner. McKennon says the bistro will be along the lines of Wolfgang Puck's Spago restaurant, with fresh, seasonal foods. Both the buffet and bistro will offer indoor and outdoor seating.

Fantasy Springs is in the process of signing up tenants for 10,000 square feet of retail shops for this gateway to the hotel.

The concourse leads to the lobby of the hotel, which McKennon says will offer four-star rooms and amenities. A colonnade with a 17-foot ceiling running the length of the hotel will face a 3.5-acre courtyard with a pool, multiple fountains, beach volleyball, fire pit, and small amphitheater. More than 24 sets of French doors running 200 feet along the colonnade will open onto the courtyard. Off the lobby at the far end will be an indoor-outdoor pool bar with a pergola-covered patio. Glass walls that slide into pockets will line three sides of the lobby bar facing into the courtyard.

McKennon calls the architecture a modem, "Frank Lloyd Wrightish" design "very appropriate for the desert."

"The tribe has avoided in the past the tribal connection to the casino," he says. Instead, the hotel design will focus on the Fantasy Springs name. "The architects have taken that to heart and added water features," he says.

While the pool itself will be reserved for hotel guests, other areas of the courtyard will be open to all visitors. "In today's world, the pool complexes are more than pool complexes," McKennon says, referencing resorts in Las Vegas. "In the day, they are a pool and at night they become activity areas." With live entertainment, he says, it creates "a third, fourth or fifth venue for people to enjoy themselves while they are at our property."

Atop the hotel will be a sky bar. "We look at that as a destination opportunity," McKennon says. "The bar will change throughout the day to become a more highenergy lounge by night." In addition to offering a view over Indio and toward the Salton Sea, the bar will include a balcony overlooking the pool complex.

South of the hotel, taking up two-thirds of the Fantasy Lanes Family Bowling Center parking lot is the 97,000-square-foot special events center with 27-foot ceilings. A 50,000-square-foot chunk of it can be divided into smaller components to accommodate a variety of uses, and another 30,000 to 40,000 square feet of ballroom space can be divided into meeting rooms. The boardroom will feature a large table with a trough down the center that can be used for wiring computers, video and teleconferencing equipment, or other electronics. The boardroom also has a "rethermalization" kitchen for catering meetings and concession stands.

McKennon says the special events center can be used for -more than front-ofmind-awareness" events such as boxing and concerts. He mentions as possibilities basketball tournaments, indoor carnivals for kids in August, horse auctions, motocross and other sporting competitions. "Who knows?" he says. "I don't think that we have really focused in on its true potential to generate foot traffic to the facility." McKennon thinks the center could be "an important component of tourism to open up a whole new opportunity for hosting evens that heretofore didn't exist [locally]."

A large portion of construction financing ($145 million) comes from tax-free municipal bonds underwritten by Merrill Lynch and issued by the California Statewide Communities Development Authority to the East Valley Tourist Development Authority, founded by the Cabazon tribe. As a sponsoring subdivision of the conduit bond financing, Riverside County will receive nearly $20 million in overnight visitor fees during the first 18 years of the resort's operation. No bond funds may be used for gamingrelated development. The remaining cost is financed through a bank consortium loan and tribal equity contribution.

The tribe refers to the hotel and special events center as the first phase of a larger development. "Phases two and three are not clearly defined in timing or components," McKennon says. He explains that the tribe has acquired approximately 300 acres of land contiguous to the 200 acres of reservation land at the resort site near Interstate 10 and Golf Center Parkway. Plans call for a "lifestyle and power shopping center," a second hotel with 300 to 400 rooms (possibly a joint venture with a four-star, flagship property), timeshares, 18-hole golf course, large day spa, tribal administration building, cultural center, and housing to the northwest. "That is complete build-out," McKennon says, "which is truly going to make [Fantasy Springs] a destination unto itself."