05 Jul How Will the New Montreign Resort Effect the Summer Resident?
Charlie Degliomini is the Executive Vice President of Empire. He is a former Deputy Communications Director for U.S. Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, Chief of Staff of the U.S. General Services Administration, New York State Communications Director for Reagan-Bush ‘84 and Senior Vice President of an Internet Lottery Corporation.
Two weeks ago Ari Hirsch from The Country Vues met up with Charles Degliomini, the official spokesmen for the Montreign Resort, at the construction site of the new Montreign Resort.
Ari Hirsch: Please tell all summer residents about the new resort that’s coming to Monticello.
Charles A. Degliomini: Empire Resorts is the owner and operator of Montreign Resort Casino at Adelaar. It will feature an 80,000-square-foot casino with 61 table games and 2,150 slot machines.
It will include a 391-room, 18-story hotel, several restaurants and an
entertainment complex. We also own and will operate the Entertainment Village that we are building and the renovated Monster Golf Course. Our partners at EPR properties are financing a group of indoor family waterpark hotels. The indoor water park will have a 350-room family lodge. The waterpark is going to be a beautiful, state-of-the-art building with indoor and outdoor pools.
AH: What is the current status of the Resort?
CD: The casino and hotel will be open in two years by the Spring of 2018. We are projecting that 60% of our rooms will be ready by then. The state wants us to stick to our schedule and they are our partners in this. The waterpark should be ready in the Spring of 2019. The Golf Course will probably be open one or two months after we open and the Entertainment Village should be open six months after our opening in 2018.
AH: Where exactly is the location of the resort going to be?
The new hotel will be on 1,700 acres of the site of the former Concord Resort in Kiamesha Lake, just outside Monticello in the Town of Thompson. Its borders will be Rockridge Drive and Concord Road to the west, Route 161 to the east, Kiamesha Lake Road to the north and Route 17 to the south.
The primary access will be from Route 17 Exit 106, where a new traffic circle is being built near Route 17 West. Joyland Road will be bypassed.
AH: How will the Montreign Resort affect tourism in the area?
CD: Right now this area has about 4 million visitors each year. We expect that our projects will double the amount of visitors coming to the area each year.
AH: How will this affect the local economy?
CD: Our preference is always to work with local businesses in supplying us with goods and services. We will always try to work with local businesses.
AH: People have expressed concern that since there is a new exit that goes directly to the hotel, visitors will not venture out to the local community.
CD: We have a player point system that will be awarded to our guests for using and playing at our facility. These points can be used at local restaurants and shops, as well. We will then send the proprietor a check for those points. Additionally, we are creating 2,200 new full-time jobs. These people will be living and shopping locally, so that will also strengthen the economy here.
AH: Will there be anything kosher up here?
CD: We don’t see this as the old borscht-belt model. We are looking at this project as a new paradigm. Our business model is to attract all ages of people with disposable incomes to have a high-end resort experience. It is not necessarily aimed at people with kosher dietary restrictions.
AH: Do you expect there to be a lot more traffic, especially over the summer months?
CD: We spent three years studying traffic and all the traffic we’ve identified on our end, we have provided solutions for. The traffic issues up and down Route 17 are really state government issues and we hope that they find a solution for that, as well.
AH: What kind of entertainment will you have?
CD: We will have a 27,000 square foot event/convention center and will have all sorts of acts there. We have a very deep relationship with the people at Bethel Woods so we don’t want to compete with them. We want to makes sure that whatever we do is synergistic with Bethel Woods and that we’re not doing the same things as them. We will be able to use our venue for things such as boxing, mixed martial arts, and basketball tournaments. We will also be able to use it for weddings and bar mitzvahs. The waterpark will also have its own venue space.
AH: What will you do with the Racino?
CD: We are going to keep it. They have about a thousand slot machines right now. We’re going to upgrade it and improve the experience there.
AH: We hear that Legoland is trying to build a park in Goshen. How do you feel about this?
CD: We think this is great. We always try to work with other venues in the area. Our hope is that families will go to Legoland and experience that type of family fun and then they’ll come to our hotel and experience a different type of family entertainment. Varying attractions will hopefully bring more people to the area.
AH: Let’s talk about the summer resident.
CD: We want to be a good neighbor. My door is always open to the religious community and I’ve already met with members of the religious community who have expressed their concerns to me. They don’t necessarily want the community to come into this gaming type of experience and we really do understand that. We will make sure to work with them. If there’s a colony who doesn’t want to be on our mailing list which offers coupons to the casino, we will make sure to exclude them from the list. We have sent representatives, some who speak Yiddish, to the summer residents to make sure that when they are in their walking modes they stay away from the construction sites for safety reasons. We have provided alternate walking routes. We don’t want people going up and down the roads with all this construction going on. There aren’t any sidewalks and we want to make sure everyone is safe.