TULSA, Okla. – With progress continuing on the largest Osage Casino Hotel project, casino officials expect the structure to be enclosed for climate control this fall.
As of mid-June, much of the lower level of the two-story casino is covered by the main floor of the casino. Also, several portions of the building’s steel frame are now standing and visible from nearby 36th Street North.
“We have made some significant progress on the construction (here) in Tulsa,” Osage Casino CEO Byron Bighorse said. “A lot of stuff is happening that you can’t even see because it’s underground, most of the rooms are framed out already so you get a real sense of the enormity of this project.”
Bighorse delivered the update to the Osage Nation Gaming Enterprise Board on June 21 at the casino’s executive offices just west of the construction project. Traffic access to the executive offices is now rerouted to the west of the office buildings as the project progresses. Staff and visitors must drive along the west and north sides of the buildings before turning south by the Nation’s Tulsa WIC office to access the parking lot in front of the offices’ main entrance.
“We’re going to build something everyone’s going to very proud of,” Bighorse said. “We cannot wait to showcase it to the people of Oklahoma, the people of Indian gaming… the numbers are coming in favorable to us.”
The $150 million expanded Tulsa casino/ hotel project will include 400,000 square feet of new property with casino amenities including 16 table games, five poker tables, 1,500 electronic games, a sports bar and grill, café, a full-service brew pub and a 126-room hotel tower.
Bighorse said construction crews expect “to move air in November – what I mean by that is the place will have walls, there will be air conditioning inside.”
In related news, casino Chief Operations Officer Joe Cooper told the board the casino’s annual spring concert series held in May “went pretty well” amid spring stormy weather. “May is always a crapshoot on weather,” he said of the month’s rain and severe storm warnings, but the concerts at the Bartlesville, Hominy and Skiatook casinos went on as planned.
Cooper also said “most likely we will not be doing the concert series next (year) in preparation for Tulsa and what we have going on there.” For the past several years, Osage Casino hosted the outdoor spring concert series with different acts performing on separate dates at some of the seven casino properties with free admission to people of all ages.
Casino officials expect to open the Tulsa casino/ hotel doors in mid-2018. To view photos of the Tulsa Osage Casino construction progress, visitwww.osagecasinos.com to see images and drone video coverage updated periodically.
