North County casino launches expansion

Not content to cater just to Southern Californians, the Rincon Indian tribe is getting ready to debut an ambitious $160 million expansion of its Harrahs-branded resort that it hopes will help elevate it as a world-class destination.

Now at 1,065 rooms, the newly named Harrahs Resort Southern California on Valley Center Road just south of Highway 76 will be the fourth-biggest hotel property in the county, just edging out the Sheraton Hotel and Marina on Harbor Island. It will also be the largest American Indian casino/resort in California in terms of hotel rooms, said Bo Mazzetti, chairman of the Rincon Band of Luiseo Indians.

The North County resorts new name, which no longer includes a reference to the Rincon reservation, will also go a long way toward more widely marketing the property, said Mazzetti.

This was a business decision made by the full council, he explained. If were going to do what we set out to do, which is to be a world-class facility and attract people from Russia, China, the United States, you have to have something attractive, something that people will understand. How many people are familiar with Valley Center or Rincon?

The Rincon band decided to move forward with the project only after careful research and monitoring of occupancy rates, which have hovered around 97 percent year-round. Mazzetti noted that the resorts pool parties had become so popular the resort had to turn people away.

The debut last July of the hotels swim-up bar and a 400-foot-long lazy river pool, which circulates through grottos and waterfalls, marked the first phase of the renovation. The Baja-inspired ritas Cantina also opened at that time, and due to open next month is a wine and craft beer bar called Corked, which has a 15,260-square-foot patio and will have live music.

Corked is the resort's newest wine and craft beer bar, which is due to open in April. Nelvin C. Cepeda

The resorts biggest additions, though, are a new 21-story tower opening in April with 403 guest rooms and a 53,000-square-foot convention and entertainment venue that can accommodate up to 2,200 in concert-style seating. Its part of the resorts effort to expand its customer base and better market itself as a destination not only for leisure travelers but also for smaller conventions and meetings, said Janet Baronio, regional president and general manager of the resort.

We began to see customer visitation pick up and move to a higher level and customer spending and visitation from outlying areas also began to pick up, Baronio said. We draw a lot of customers from Southern California counties, and we have national customers, as well. As that continued to grow, those discussions about the master plan continued to evolve to the point that now is the time to move forward.

The last major expansion and renovation was in 2004 two years after the resort opened when the Rincon band spent $168 million on a new 465-room hotel tower, parking garage and spa; an expansion of the pool area and a remodel of its smaller Garden Tower. Come this fall, an additional $20 million will be invested in a renovation of the hotels other larger tower.

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North County casino launches expansion