Published February 2004

Stillaguamish Tribe secures loan for casino

SCBJ Staff

The Stillaguamish Tribe has lined up a $19 million loan from Marshall Bank of Minneapolis to build a casino on 20 acres of federal trust land the tribe owns a few miles northwest of Arlington.

The move follows an earlier attempt to gain financing for the proposed casino, a deal with a Detroit carpenters union, that became a sticking point for the state Gambling Commission. The union’s trustees balked at state regulators’ insistence on criminal background checks.

The proposed 22,000-square-foot “Angel of the Winds” casino, expected to be built on 35th Avenue NE, is substantially scaled back from last year’s 40,000-square-foot proposal. Tribal consultant Chuck Galford said the new casino will have 425 video slot machines (the state maximum for the first year) and eight gaming tables. It will employ 350 people.

The design phase has only just begun, he said, so initial construction might not take place for another two months.

Eddie Goodridge Jr., the tribe’s executive director, said the tribe is starting out more modestly because of the $5 million debt it still has to pay to the original investors. The building will be designed for expansion, though.

The casino’s planned location is a couple of miles from I-5. The tribe would be open to moving the casino closer to I-5, and away from its rural neighborhood, if federal trust status can be negotiated for the new land, Goodridge said.

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