Following a lengthy process going back to 2011, Creech Air Force Base acquired and closed the Indian Springs Casino Resort. Since unmanned-drone operations and other activities of a high-security nature are conducted from Creech, the Air Force deemed an anti-terrorist perimeter desirable and the casino lay in the path of progress. A December 2011 environmental-impact study had recommended the acquisition of 17 acres of resort property and "demolition of all existing privately owned buildings and structures, underground fuel tank abatement, land restoration, and construction of a new boundary fence along the perimeter of the proposed land to be acquired."
Don’t cry for the owners: They were paid $11.5 million by the Air Force for their casino, with the transfer of property happening this past Oct. 1. Indian Springs Holdings Manager Todd Marshall said it was the culmination of "a long process." And, although the property was sold, Indian Springs Holdings retained its gaming entitlement, which expires March 31 unless the company proposes transferring it to another site. "We’re working with our lawyer on those entitlements," Marshall told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
"It’s probably premature to comment on that," said Marshall when LVA asked whether he would stay in the casino business in Indian Springs. "We’re working on some site drawings" for an 8.5-acre parcel on the south side of Highway 95, across from where Indian Springs Casino once sat. "We’re kind of in the initial, conceptual stage right now," said Marshall, explaining his reticence with regard to the project.
Meanwhile the Air Force’s immediate plan is to level the Indian Springs Casino, which sits within a few thousand feet of buildings where Air Force and RAF personnel remotely conduct MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper drone raids. Casino waitress Melissa Trotter lamented, "I feel bad for the military people. They don’t like the mess hall. That’s why they came to the casino [as many as 200 at a time]. They loved the chicken fingers. We made the batter and the dip ourselves."
The casino’s fate may have been sealed when a high-ranking Air Force officer visited the Casino Resort and told an employee there "he felt unsafe in the barracks because the only thing separating him from the casino and the gas station was a brick wall." Newly unemployed Indian Springs worker Jessica Colcord took the casino’s closing in stride, telling the R-J, "I don’t really know what they’re doing over there, but I support our troops. They protect us and they fight for us and they die for us."
