Double down: construction nears completion on the Cherokee Casino's $650 million bid to be more than a one-stop gambling shop.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: PICTURE THIS

Bingo was the beginning. In the early '90s, tourists would drift into a small building just up Paint Town Road from the rubber-tomahawk shops on the souvenir strip in Cherokee, play and leave. The big time arrived in 1997, when what's now Las Vegas-based Caesar's Entertainment Corp. opened Hanah's Cherokee Casino. More than 3 million people came its first fiscal year. Many were day-trippers, heading home after a few hours of gambling. Now the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is completing a $650 million expansion, betting that turtling the casino and hotel into a destination resort will pay off big.

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"You'll be able to come, stay and never even eat in the same place over the course of two or three days," says Ahinawake Littledave, the casino's marketing manager. The largest hospitality project under way in the Southeast, the expansion is adding a 532-room tower that will make Harrah's the biggest hotel in North Carolina, with 1,108 rooms. It's also building four restaurants along with a VIP lounge, spa and Asiangaming and digital-poker rooms. The casino's main gaming floor will double to 150,000 square feet, and a 3,000-seat liveentertainment center has already opened. New York-based Turner Construction Co. is the contractor, and Minneapolis-based Cuningham Group is the architect. The tribe also opened an 18-hole golf course near Cherokee three years ago.

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Started in 2007 and wrapping up in November, the...