From the Desk of Vice Chairman Lenny Paredes,
I hope everybody had an amazing holiday season and hello to 2025. It was great to see family and friends. On the way back from one of these family outings, I visited a tribal casino. While the trip to the casino was fun, I left a few bucks lighter than I went in with. While sitting there playing blackjack it had me thinking…. In my 4 plus years on staff with BAC 3, we’ve built or expanded several casinos over our 46 counties here in Northern CA. These casinos have been good for the BAC membership, giving them many weeks if not months of work. Fortunately, there are a couple more projects coming.
The Sky River Casino in Elk Grove announced their expansion earlier this year. The Wilton Rancheria owns nearly 140 acres of land including Sky River Casino, which provides room for this expansion. This project will be built under a PLA, so I anticipate many BAC hours on this project. It will be built in two phases.
Phase 1 will be a multi-story 1,600 spot parking garage with enhanced valet and is expected to be built and operational by Summer 2025.
Phase 2 will include a 300-room state-of-the-art hotel, outdoor pool, day spa, additional restaurants, and a multi-use event and entertainment space. Phase 2 will also create additional slot gaming options with a High Limit and VIP gaming area. The Wilton Rancheria expects the hotel phase to be up and running by early 2027.
In Madera CA, the North Fork Mono Casino and Resort is currently under construction. It took the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians 20 years to get the project going. Lawsuits by different groups and other neighboring casinos left construction in limbo. Just like the Sky River Casino, this casino will be built under a PLA on their 305-acre site.
In Sonoma County the Graton Resort and Casino are also expanding. Plans include a new 144,000 square foot gaming floor with 2000 slot machines, 40 table games, a new poker room, and a new high limit area. The build out includes a 5-story hotel with over 200 rooms, new restaurants, food court, entertainment lounge, retail space and meeting rooms. This large project will also include a new parking structure and a 3500-seat theatre.
These casinos will provide BAC members with thousands of work hours. Next time you are at a tribal casino, check out all the work performed or installed by the different trades of BAC. When complete, all these casinos should be able to attract top tier entertainment and save trips to Las Vegas and Southern CA Casino resorts. On behalf of BAC 3 staff, we’d love to wish you all a Happy New Year and a prosperous 2025.
Respectfully,
Lenny Paredes