Federal decision allows Rock Hill’s Catawba Nation to move forward with NC casino
The Rock Hill, S.C.-based Catawba Indian Nation will move forward with a planned casino in Kings Mountain, N.C.
The U.S. Department of Interior agreed Thursday to allow the Catawba Nation to take 16 acres of land along I-85 into trust. That opens the door for the tribe to build the casino, according to a release from the tribe.
“The Nation is very thankful for the Department’s decision to take this land into trust, enabling us to achieve the promise of self-determination through economic development,” Catawba Chief Bill Harris said in a prepared statement.
The Catawba Indian Nation’s reservation and tribal headquarters sits on about 700 acres just east of Rock Hill. The Catawba Nation listed its population, as of last fall, as 3,332, with 975 living on the reservation.
Catawba Indian Nation leaders said the project would bring more than 5,000 construction jobs and 4,000 permanent jobs to the Kings Mountain area, which is about 47 miles away in Cleveland County, N.C.
Project plans include a casino, a hotel and restaurants, Harris said Friday during a press conference in Kings Mountain.
The complex will cost about $273 million, according to The Charlotte Observer.
Harris said the project will require investors but did not name any the tribe is considering. Harris also said he could not yet provide a date when construction would start or when the casino would open.
Financial Stability
The casino is the latest in a long list of projects the Catawba Indian Nation has pursued to improve the tribe’s finances.
“This is an economic development project,” Harris said. “The fact that the tribe has no economic development currently, that’s the big plus. With that, it allows us to open doors we weren’t able to open before.”
Harris said Friday the casino revenue would help the tribe invest more in Rock Hill to help tribal citizens. He said it’s important to focus on more than gaming revenue.
“With this type of project and the revenue that could come from this, it allows us to then purchase lands closer. Then maybe we could start doing some other projects,” Harris said.
“It’s not about Catawba, it’s about a community project,” he said.
In 2015, Harris testified to a Congressional subcommittee that the tribe’s poverty rate, with a per capita income of $11,096, was more than double that in the rest of the state, reports the Charlotte Observer.
The tribe’s past efforts to bring revenue from gaming have not been successful. In 2017, the nation closed its bingo operation on Cherry Road in Rock Hill. An earlier bingo hall opened in 1997 and closed in 2006 at the site of what then was the Rock Hill Mall on Cherry Road.
A news release in 2017 said the closing was the result of “historical sluggish summer sales” and competition in the region. The tribe also was required to pay 10 percent of the face value of bingo paper to the state, regardless of whether the tribe’s hall made a profit.
The Catawba nation also owed a decades-long $4.5 million debt to the Rock Hill school district. In 2017, the tribe settled the debt by transferring property to the district, according to financial statements from the Nation.
The tribe received $50 million as part of a 1993 settlement with South Carolina. That money supports scholarships for tribal citizens attending college and was used for land development, business investments and establishing services for the tribe’s citizens, tribal administrator Elizabeth Harris said last year in an interview with The Herald.
The money also provided $4,000 to every person who was born or considered a tribal citizen at the time of the settlement -- to be paid once they reach 21 years old.
“When you are trying to care for a population of people, that money does divide up quickly into different programs and services,” Elizabeth said last year.
The tribe also receives federal funding through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but that money must support social services for tribal members, such as clothing, food and children’s welfare, The Herald previously reported.
“There’s nothing that can generate the amount of revenue for us that gaming could,” Elizabeth said last year.
Elizabeth Harris is distantly related to Chief Harris.
A long battle
The Catawbas have been fighting opposition to their proposed casino for more than a year from North Carolina senators and the Eastern Band of Cherokees.
The Eastern Band of the Cherokees, which has operated a casino in North Carolina since 1997, said the Catawba casino would infringe on their aboriginal territory in what they called a “modern-day land grab,” The Observer previously reported.
The Cherokees plan to fight the latest decision in court, reports The Observer.
Harris said he does not believe the Cherokees have legal grounds to fight the Department of Interior’s decision.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican, introduced a bill in March 2019 that allowed the Interior department to open the door for the Nation to acquire 16 acres near Kings Mountain. The Catawbas first tried to build the casino in 2013, reports The Charlotte Observer.
The Catawbas can’t put a casino on their reservation in York County, S.C.
In the 1993 agreement, they agreed to drop their claims to surrounding York County land in exchange for $50 million and federal recognition. But the state of South Carolina drew the line at gambling, which is illegal in the state.
The Catawbas have said it’s a provision of the 1993 agreement with South Carolina that gives them the right to own a casino in Cleveland County. That provision gave the tribe a “service area” in six N.C. counties, including Mecklenburg and Cleveland. Tribe members who live in those counties are eligible for the same federal benefits and services as those living on the reservation.
“The land is located in close proximity to our current landholdings and is our ancestral land, in an area that the Catawba people have used and occupied since time immemorial,” reads the statement from Chief Harris.
This story was originally published March 15, 2020 at 12:00 AM.
