Sunland Park Casino Sunland Park, New Mexico

Originally built in 1959, the Sunland Park Racetrack has been remodeled with a slot machine casino added to its west end. The new project includes administrative offices, a new restaurant, snack bar and lounge.

Cost: $3,000,000 Completed: 1999

In August of 1997, Northrise Corporation began demolition of a portion of the west-end of the existing facility in order to accommodate the new casino. A new addition to the existing racetrack building containing a domed entry, casino operations offices, snack bar, and rest rooms was added. Additional improvements include reroofing, new exterior finish system, new heating and cooling systems, remodeling and enlarging racetrack offices, remodeling the grandstand, new bar/lounge area, new restaurant with two new bars, new pari-mutuel islands, remodeling existing Mexican food snack bar. Site work includes a new valet parking drop off ramp, new parking lot lighting, and a new handicap accessibility ramp.

There were several considerations in designing the new casino. First, the gaming area floor needed to be designed in such a manner as to not block the view of the racetrack for the racing patrons. For handicap accessibility reasons, the floor of the gaming area needed to be level, so a new structural concrete floor was built on top of the existing grandstands. Raising up this portion of floor tended to block the view of the remaining grandstand seats so the interior wall of casino was curved in a long graceful arc allowing a view of the back turn of the track.

Because the addition of gaming facilities required additional personnel, the administration offices needed to be doubled. In order to accommodate the additional offices, the existing para-mutual tellers were removed and were placed in new islands near the grandstands.

The exterior of the building has been completely refinished with a southwestern theme employing lively colors. The outstanding feature of the exterior addition is a new copper clad hemispherical dome 25 feet in diameter. An accent band of red and yellow tile bordered with green adorns the façade of the building.