“The thought is to create a vibrant hub of activity in the heart of the property,” Jason Guyot, president and chief executive officer, said in a phone interview. “We’re spread out so far, from the Rainmaker Casino on one side to The Fox Tower on the other side, it’s difficult for guests to manage. There’s no better place to put it (a new gaming space) than Grand Pequot, the busiest section of the property ― the heartbeat of the property.”

On Wednesday, Foxwoods announced it will undertake $85 million in improvements this fall, including adding a 50,000-square-foot gaming area and a 250-seat restaurant branded with the name of a celebrity chef whose identity has yet to be revealed. The new, as-yet-unnamed gaming space, or “casino,” as such spaces are known, will join Foxwoods’ five existing casinos: Cedar, Grand Pequot, Rainmaker, Stargazer and The Fox Tower.

Guyot said the new gaming space, which will replace the Grand Ballroom, will have around 500 slots, including 175 high-limit machines, and 24 table games, including the usual mix of blackjack, roulette, craps and the like, as well as a 40-seat bar.

Foxwoods, now operating about 3,000 slots, will reduce the number of machines in some of its existing casinos, leaving it with a total of between 3,000 and 3,300 machines once the new gaming space opens, a number that reflects demand, Guyot said.

By comparison, Mohegan Sun has been operating about 3,700 machines in recent months.

The Grand Ballroom, which has been used for special events and meeting space, became expendable when Foxwoods adopted a plan to convert its original bingo hall into the 75,000-square-foot Rainmaker Expo Center, which is scheduled to open in mid-November. At that point, Guyot said, construction on the new gaming space will begin.

In mid-July, Foxwoods opened a new, 2,200-seat High Stakes Bingo Hall, a 30,000-square-foot space in which it invested $7 million.

“We’ve had to do some very strategic things to be able to free up the ballroom,” Guyot said. “The Expo Center will give us around 40,000 more square feet than we had in the ballroom. We’ll be able to do more things, like indoor Wiffle ball, car and boat shows, Comicons (comic book conventions) without having to worry about breaking a $500,000 chandelier.”

He likened the changes in Foxwoods’ floor plan to “dominoes falling.”

Casino looking for workers

Foxwoods continues to struggle to fill positions left open in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused casinos across the country to close for a time in 2020 and gradually return to near-full operation. Foxwoods has upped its employee benefits and pay rates in an effort to lure workers. “It’s still a huge challenge to find talent,” Guyot said.

He said Foxwoods’ workforce now numbers about 3,100 people, down from about 5,100 before the pandemic. While the ongoing changes on the property are not expected to result in a major increase in positions, plans for Great Wolf Lodge at Mashantucket, a $300 million indoor water park resort to be built on reservation land adjacent to Foxwoods, could generate 600 to 700 jobs, according to Guyot.

Great Wolf Resorts, which will lease the development site from the Foxwoods-owning Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, is expected to break ground for the water park resort this fall and open it in 2024.

“Competitively, it’s a challenging environment,” Guyot said, discussing the need for Foxwoods to keep evolving.

In the last decade, casinos have proliferated in Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island and more gaming expansion is on the horizon in New York.

“Our goal is to become the greatest integrated resort destination in the Northeast,” Guyot said. “Our competitors have all the more traditional offerings ― gaming, hotels, restaurants, some entertainment, but we have so much more than that, which is why we’ve been able to compete.”

He said Foxwoods will have a very different feel when the ongoing changes are finished. “By next summer, when you rattle off the list of what we’ve been able to do, it’ll really be astounding,” he said.

By Brian Hallenbeck