Wilton tribe breaks ground in Elk Grove on Sky River Casino; opening planned for late 2022
Sky River Casino will be the Wilton Rancheria tribe’s new Elk Grove resort, the name unveiled in a ceremony Tuesday with an opening date set for the second half of 2022.
“It’s a good day,” Wilton tribal elder and former chairwoman Mary Tarango, said after leading the crowd of several hundred tribal members, local and regional officials in prayer on the Promenade Parkway site near Highway 99. “Remember our ancestors — and our elders who believed this monumental day would come.”
Tarango and other Rancheria and civic leaders at Tuesday’s groundbreaking for the $400 million project hailed the day as not only an economic boon to an Elk Grove seeking to emerge from its reputation as a bedroom community but as another step toward Wilton tribal self-sufficiency.
“Today is a great day for the city and a meaningful step forward for the Wilton Rancheria tribe,” said Elk Grove Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen, who said Elk Grove residents told her that “we need more entertainment and dining options and we need more jobs.”
On Tuesday, leaders promised both. The short- and long-term impacts for Elk Grove and the rancheria will be significant. Wilton Rancheria pledges to invest $186 million in the city and Sacramento County over the next 20 years to support public safety and education, roads and other services. The project is expected to employ some 1,500 skilled workers over the length of construction and another 2,000 jobs once the resort is built.
The groundbreaking on Elk Grove’s abandoned “ghost mall” property came three months after Las Vegas gaming firm Boyd Gaming Corp., purchased the 64-acre site for an undisclosed amount. An undisclosed third party is providing full financing for the $400 million project off of Grant Line Road, Boyd Gaming officials said
Plans include up to 2,000 slot machines and more than 80 table games on the gaming floor.
Boyd officials at the time of the December sale said the project would include a hotel, spa, restaurants and a convention center — which would be one of the largest in the capital region.
At the site, Boyd Gaming president Keith Smith pledged the new resort “will become one of the most popular, profitable casinos in the state,” providing “jobs not only for the tribe but for the entire Elk Grove community,” before addressing tribal members directly.
“This day is about you and your mission of self-sufficiency,” Smith said. “There’s nothing more important than to take care of your own.”
For the tribe, revenue will help to improve housing, health care and educational opportunities, leaders said, preserving a tribal community of more than 800 members. The Wilton Rancheria had struggled for decades after its federal designation was stripped nearly 60 years ago only to have it restored in 2009. Legal battles followed to gain a gaming compact, purchase land and open the way for the casino project.
Former California Gov. Jerry Brown and Gov. Gavin Newsom offered congratulations via video. Brown signed the gaming compact in 2017 giving the go-ahead to build what will become Sky River.
Noting the many obstacles the Wilton Rancheria has faced over the generations, Brown called the Sky River project and its implications for the tribe, “a beginning, a birth, with new technologies and new people, but a commitment to the old ways.”
Tuesday’s latest step toward that milestone, “marks a new beginning, a new chapter here in Elk Grove,” said state Assemblyman James Ramos, D-Highland, the first California Native American elected to the Assembly and a former leader of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians.
“This shows the resilience of all California Indian people and the resilience of your leaders to keep fighting,” Ramos said. “It’s a day to celebrate but also to look forward — to educating people, to adequate housing, to health care.”
This story was originally published March 9, 2021 at 3:02 PM.
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