Hill International Tapped to Manage Suburban Seattle Casino Expansion Project

By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

Hill’s William Grubich

An expansion is in the works for the Suquamish Clearwater Casino Resort in Clearwater, Wash., and Hill International has won the contract to provide construction management services for the project. The contract was awarded by Port Madison Enterprises, operator of the casino resort and economic agent of the Suquamish Tribe, owner of the gaming destination, which sits a ferry ride across Puget Sound from Seattle.

Suquamish Clearwater’s growth spurt will include a three-story, 74,000 square-foot addition to the casino, as well as the development of a 770-car parking facility and a hotel that will add 100 guestrooms to the existing pool of 87 guestrooms. The five-story hotel may be just the thing to lure more players.

“[At casino across the country], the decision usually for adding a hotel is how big of a hotel do you need to meet peak demand on weekends for customers that are more than, say, a two-hour drive away,” Brent Pirosch, director of gaming consulting with commercial real estate services firm Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, told Commercial Property Executive. “When they’ve been playing and drinking, the drive home is too far away to be convenient. And it tends to be that people who are staying in a hotel have higher gaming revenue than someone who’s staying for a few hours. So how much is it going to cost you to build that hotel and how much incremental gaming revenue can you get from having those people stay overnight–that should be the thought process behind adding a hotel.”

Hill will also manage the tenfold augmentation of the property’s meeting and entertainment space, which will assist PME in realizing its goal of transforming Suquamish Clearwater into the largest convention center in the West Sound region. “We look forward to helping the Resort successfully achieve its ambitious expansion plans,” William B. Grubich, Hill’s vice president in charge of Native American projects, said in a prepared statement.

Net gaming receipts for tribal casinos in Washington have been on a consistent upswing for more than a decade, growing from approximately $272.6 million in fiscal year 2000 to $2.1 billion in 2012, according to the Washington State Gambling Commission.