Ho-Chunk Launches Casino Construction in Beloit

Jon Greendeer, president of the Ho-Chunk Nation, had the most rousing speech of the seven speakers. Greendeer referred to the many hurdles the Ho-Chunk faced to get to this stage and issued a message to people who wonder how well it will do with a competing casino 15 minutes away in Rockford.

“A lot of people are excited to see this venture go up against Hard Rock in Rockford,” Greendeer said. “We’re not here to co-exist with Hard Rock. This is our market. We are great at gaming. We are No. 1 at gaming.”

Hard Rock International opened a 175,000-square-foot casino and concert center off Interstate-90 in Rockford at the end of August.

Ho-Chunk currently operates six casinos in Wisconsin — Black River Falls, Madison, Nekoosa, Tomah, Baraboo and Wittenberg. When complete, the Beloit casino will be the second largest casino in Wisconsin behind Madison with 1,800 slot machines and 44 gaming tables.

Friday’s ceremony drew city leaders, construction officials, curious local residents and scores of Ho-Chunk leaders and citizens. It even included a visitor from North Carolina, former Rockford resident Kurt Carlson, who was the original developer of the land where the project will be built.

“I was asked to come up here by the (Beloit City Council) to help with economic development when Beloit Corp. was closing up (in 1999),” Carlson remembered. “The factories were all leaving so we were looking at a big entertainment complex. A friend of mine (in the Ho-Chunk Nation) called me and asked if the city would be interested in a casino. I didn’t think so, but I brought it up and they said ‘we need something.’”

So Carlson bought the land on the corner of Willowbrook and Colley roads and looked for partners. He spent several years working with the Bad River and St. Croix Chippewa tribes. That partnership fell through in January 2009 when the Bad River/St. Croix Chippewa casino application was rejected by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

“I’m sitting here still owning the land and decided to call my original friend in Ho-Chunk, Ritchie Brown, and asked, ‘do you think you want to do (a Beloit casino)?’” Carlson said. Brown was at Friday’s ceremony as well. “They didn’t want to do it before because they had their casino in Madison, but now they’d changed their minds and off we went.”

The Ho-Chunk Nation bought the land from Carlson in November 2009 and started the arduous regulatory process of getting approval. Carlson said he wasn’t surprised it took so long to break ground.

“I’ve had a few projects that took 15 years or more,” Carlson said. “My thought is as long as it’s a good idea and you keep trying it will eventually happen.”

The U.S. Department of Interior approved moving the 32 acres of land where the casino project will be located into trust in April of 2020. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers gave his approval to the project in 2021, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs gave the Beloit casino approval in 2022.

Miron Construction, headquartered in Neenah, Wisconsin, will be the general contractor for the construction project in Beloit. Miron is a massive company with scores of projects around the state, including the Titletown development in Green Bay, the UW-Madison Nicholas Recreation Center and, perhaps most importantly to this project, casino expansions for Ho-Chunk in Wisconsin Dells, Black River Falls and Wittenberg.

Beloit-based Corporate Contractors Inc. will act as project manager. Essentially, CCI will oversee the project for the Ho-Chunk Nation. Kevin Day, vice president of business development, will head the team making sure the project comes together to Ho-Chunk’s standards.

Day, who also is vice president of the Beloit City Council, said the casino will be the largest project CCI has ever been involved with. For the past few years, Ho-Chunk has consistently said the project would cost about $405 million. On Friday, everyone involved said it was going to be a $500 million project. To put that into context, CCI built ABC Supply Stadium, which is one of the finest minor league baseball stadiums in the United States. That was about a $40 million project.

Day said even though the casino likely won’t open until the summer of 2026 with the convention center and hotel following in 2027 the positive economic impacts are going to be felt almost immediately.

“We’re going to have 500 to 800 people here daily working, especially in the summers, to get this thing built,” Day said. “They are going to be eating lunch here every day. They are going to be buying gas. A large number are going to come from out of town and they’ll rent hotel rooms or get apartments. People have no idea how much money just building this will bring to Beloit.”

HBG Design, based in Memphis, Tennessee, is the architect for the project. The company has a long history of designing hospitality venues and has over 50 casino — resort clients.

View Article here.