More than four years have passed since Arkansans approved a constitutional amendment to put one of four newly legal casinos in Pope County, but odds are strong the long-delayed project will wait at least a few more months.

A final legal challenge by a rival for the gaming license remains, and a Little Rock judge who declared the case his top priority held two hearings last week and seemed on the cusp of issuing a decision certain to be appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court.

The appeals lawsuit, an amended complaint by Mississippi’s Gulfside Casino Partnership, challenges the license of Legends Resort & Casino, a $225 million project of Oklahoma gaming operator Cherokee Nation Businesses.

In hearings Tuesday and Wednesday, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox signaled that he is near a decision, and he also appeared to be tidying the record for what insiders say is an inevitable appeal by whichever side loses.

CNB plans to put the casino and hotel project on a $35 million, 182-acre tract north of Interstate 40 between the Weir Road and Bradley Cove Road exits in Russellville.

Cherokee Nation, based in Catoosa, Oklahoma, has run tribal casinos in Oklahoma for 30 years, including just across the state line from Arkansas. Gulfside’ challenge to Legends’ status as a bona fide casino applicant is standing in the way of a groundbreaking by CDI Contractors of Little Rock, which has been chosen as the project’s general contractor.

Fourth and Last

The casino and hotel combination would rival the three other casinos that voters authorized with Amendment 100 — at Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort in Hot Springs and Southland Casino Hotel in West Memphis, which previously had parimutuel betting on thoroughbred and greyhound racing, respectively, and at Saracen Casino Resort in Pine Bluff, which was built by the Quapaw Nation of Oklahoma after the amendment’s passage. 

“It’s been unfortunate, I think, for the citizens of Pope County and the citizens of Arkansas that this has taken so long,” CNB Chief Executive Officer Chuck Garrett told Arkansas Business in a telephone interview last week. “It has deprived local governments and the state of some serious tax revenue. But of course, we had a very competitive process leading up the issuance of a license and that was not the case with Saracen.”

Cherokee Nation Businesses did gain a legal victory last month when Pulaski Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen dismissed a lawsuit by Citizens for a Better Pope County, which argued that Pope County citizens deserved a countywide vote before casino work could proceed.

Naming and Gaming

In the case before Judge Fox, appellant Gulfside Casino Partnership is suing the Arkansas Racing Commission for its award of the license to Legends, which it claims did not exist as an entity during the application period and doesn’t have the casino gaming experience required by Amendment 100. It couldn’t have, attorneys Lucas Z. Rowan and Casey Castleberry argue in a December 2021 amended complaint, because it wasn’t incorporated as an Arkansas limited liability company until September 2019.

The complaint also says the commission acted beyond its scope of authority by granting the license in the name of Legends and Cherokee Nation Businesses when the enterprise on the license application was Legends alone. Another Cherokee LLC, Cherokee Nation Entertainment, has decades of experience running tribal casinos in Oklahoma.

“CNB, Legends’ sole member, has no experience conducting casino gaming, and the Racing Commission’s finding to the contrary, imputing CNE’s casino gaming experience to Legends, is in violation of Amendment 100 … and Arkansas law,” the Gulfside complaint says.

Garrett, the Cherokee Nation Businesses CEO, sees those arguments as grasping at a loophole, but he’s eager to let the legal process run its course. “First and foremost, we continue to engage at the community level with charitable organizations, community leaders and business leaders in Russellville. We have had an office there since 2019, if you can believe that, and we have two full-time employees there now, along with one part-time employee, and every day they’re engaged with the community.”

CNB is represented by former Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel. 

The company has been supporting local charities and causes with time and money, to “over 70 organizations,” Garrett said, “and we’ve been continuing to focus on developing and strengthening those relationships.”

As for the casino project itself, Garrett said CNB has “been busily purchasing land we had optioned over the past several years, and have been working on really refining the design and architectural aspects of the project.” No architect or team has been designated so far, but an announcement may be on the horizon, depending on legal developments. “We’re anxious, obviously, to start construction and deliver the top-notch casino resort that we know we’re going to be able to deliver.”

Cowboy Connection

Plans call for 1,200 slot machines, 32 table games and 200 hotel rooms in the CNB project, and up to 1,000 permanent jobs are expected to be created.

Survey work at the site has proceeded, and the Russellville Planning Commission has approved Legends’ large-scale development plan. Once all legal hurdles are cleared, Garrett said, CNB’s timeline calls for the casino to be up and running within 18 to 24 months, “depending somewhat on potential supply chain issues.

“For example, it might be hard to get steel,” Garrett said. Nevertheless, he predicted a rapid pace.

The company’s favored architectural partner is based in Arkansas, and Legends of Frisco, Texas, is its hospitality and design partner, the company said. Legends was founded in 2008 by North Little Rock native Jerry Jones, the Dallas Cowboys owner, and notorious former New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. Jones kept a 20% stake when San Francisco’s Sixth Street Partners acquired 51% of the company in 2020.

Cherokee Nation Businesses also announced last summer that it is acquiring the Gold Strike Casino in Tunica, Mississippi, in a $450 million deal. CNB has 10 casino properties in Oklahoma, including the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Tulsa.

Meanwhile, a ruling could come this week from Fox, if not earlier. (Arkansas Business went to press on Thursday.) Gulfside is asking the judge to reverse the license to Legends and declare it unqualified as a casino applicant. It also seeks a finding that the Racing Commission acted beyond its authority in giving Legends the license.

If the Gulfside appeal reaches the state Supreme Court, the justices could possibly rule before their summer break, though observers said the case could easily stretch well into 2023.

Second Go-Round?

It would be the justices’ second swing at the case.

The high court ruled in favor of CNB in October 2021, leading to Gulfside’s amended complaint of December that year.

The Racing Commission had first granted Gulfside the Pope County casino license in 2020, but CNB challenged its requisite letter of local support, signed by Pope County Judge Jim Ed Gibson 10 days before his term expired at the end of 2018. By May 2019, when the commission began collecting license applications, Ben Cross was the county judge, and his support went to Cherokee Nation Businesses. The justices eventually ruled that local approval must come from active officials, “not a former or retired county judge.”

The outcome reversed a decision by Fox, the judge now presiding over Gulfside’s amended complaint.