BETHLEHEM, Pa. – In a bright, stone-tiled spa lounge 15 stories above the city's South Side, Stephanie Bryan slipped off her shoes.
The CEO of Alabama's Poarch Band of Creek Indians eased herself into a wire chair hanging from the ceiling, and dipped her toes into the shallow pool she was now suspended above. Behind her, expansive views of SteelStacks and South Bethlehem unfolded, bounded by mountains emerging from still-lingering wildfire smoke.
Bryan, along with several of her colleagues, members of the media and city officials, were touring one of her tribe’s latest investments: a $160 million expansion to Wind Creek Bethlehem, which is nearly complete.
- Wind Creek Bethlehem showed off its $160 million expansion project Thursday
- The expansion roughly doubles the number of hotel rooms onsite, and quadruples the amount of space available for meetings, weddings, conferences and other events
- Casino management says it's part of a push to stay competitive when casinos eventually open in New York
“There's no better feeling for me as a leader than to know that I've provided the tools to people and inspire them to go and do great things in their communities,” said Bryan. “That's what we've done right here in Lehigh Valley.”
The newly-finished North Tower, tacked onto the back of the old one, roughly doubles the number of hotel rooms available onsite and more than quadruples the available meeting and convention space.
The new 10,000-square-foot spa on the tower’s top floor, slated to open later this summer, is the project’s centerpiece. It boasts eight treatment rooms, a full-service salon, space specifically designed for mud treatments, steam rooms and saunas, “vitality pools” in a range of temperatures plus a cold room, locker rooms and a coed lounge space.
“I think the vision was to really bring something different to the Valley – something that was going to be unique, and something, again, that would be able to provide jobs,” said Maureen Boyd, the hotel’s director of sales.
“The fact that we can have leisure guests, as well as corporate guests, as well as association guests, makes it a one-stop for everybody.”
The tower also boasts new meeting space, including smaller “junior ballrooms” and the colossal 23,000-square-foot Foundry Room, which can accommodate 2,200 people in a theater-style set-up with rows of chairs facing a stage, or a 700-plus-person wedding.
Assistant General Manager Patrick Ryan said the complex is now the largest meeting and convention space in the Lehigh Valley, which will attract organizations that previously ruled out Wind Creek and the Valley because they couldn’t get enough room. He also expects the expansion will help attract higher-caliber artists to the casino’s performance venue — the Wind Creek Event Center.
“These are the amenities, honestly, that we've dreamed about having at this property,” Ryan said.
“These are the amenities, honestly, that we've dreamed about having at this property.”Patrick Ryan, assistant general manager
The expansion is part of an effort for the company to compete with soon-to-open casinos in New York, where many of Wind Creek’s customers come from.
“We know that New York City is going to offer some casinos at some point. We know that there's competition,” said Jay Dorris, president and CEO of Wind Creek Hospitality. “So what can we do to be competitive?”
“I think we were losing a lot to different cities like New York and New Jersey because they had the space to accommodate these large associations, larger corporate groups that we weren't able to accommodate here,” Boyd said.
Plans for expansion have been in the works since shortly after Wind Creek’s 2019 purchase of the then-Sands Casino from its Las Vegas parent company.
Shortly after finalizing the sale, COVID-19 struck, leading the casino to close for months. The expansion project forged ahead, despite economic uncertainty and lingering pandemic-related construction delays.
The North Tower has already hosted events like weddings and conferences, including the Lehigh Valley Women's Conference earlier Thursday morning.
"As a company, we've been very successful. We've been able to succeed with part of our mission, which is to create wealth for the Poarch Band of Creek Indians," Dorris said.
"In return, they've also shared that with everybody around, with the communities that surround."
