RATON - “We’re down to the stretch,” Michael Moldenhauer told a standing-room-only crowd of Ratonians and others from the area who came Wednesday night to hear from the man leading the effort to build a horseracing track and casino in south Raton.

Although Moldenhauer - a real estate developer based in Toronto whose work has included residential, commercial and industrial projects but never a gaming project - estimated he had been to Raton “probably 75 times” in the last five years since beginning the project, this week’s community meeting at the Shuler Theater was the first formal gathering at which the president of Horse Racing at Raton laid out his plans for the public.

Moldenhauer is hoping a July 10 meeting in Raton of the New Mexico Racing Commission will help secure the state’s final available racing license for the Raton project, which is competing against track applicants from Santa Fe and Tucumcari.

The track and casino - with a current price tag of $48 million - is to be built on a 225-acre site - formerly La Mesa Airport - off N.M. 555 that sits across from Raton’s defunct La Mesa Park, the state’s first horse track that ran for 46 years before going bankrupt in 1992.

The new facility is to feature a one-mile racing oval, as well as a 550-yard quarter-horse track. It is to have 1,500 stalls to accommodate 52 days of live racing in an initial season scheduled to begin in June 2010 if the state racing commission gives its OK.

“I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that date becomes a reality and that racing returns to Raton,” Moldenhauer said, drawing applause from the crowd.

The 53,693-square-foot grandstand and casino building will host simulcasting year-round and is to include 600 slot machines, with a state-allowed potential for increasing to 750. A restaurant/lounge and entertainment area are also planned.

The casino is scheduled to be built first, with completion of the track to follow eight to 10 months later.

Construction is expected to produce 100 jobs that will give way to 300 full- and part-time positions once the track-and-casino facility is fully operational. Horse Racing at Raton forecasts an annual payroll of $7 million, which Moldenhauer said, would almost double the entire community’s current payroll amount. The 300 jobs would make Horse Racing at Raton the largest local employer, well ahead of the current top two - Miners’ Colfax Medical Center and Raton Public Schools - which each employ about 190.

Horse Racing at Raton’s information that was part of its updated application to the racing commission predicts the track and casino acting “as the major investment inspiration for the revitalization of Raton’s main thoroughfare,” as well as being “a catalyst for small support business and job creation” while increasing tourism.

Moldenhauer called the proposed building plans a “starting point” for discussion with the local community. He said he wants input about the building’s style and themes, as well as what other venues could be added to the track and casino site. He said some suggestions that have been made include a hotel, truck stop, RV park, indoor rodeo facility and an equestrian center.

“I don’t pretend to be a horseracing expert,” Moldenhauer said. “I don’t pretend to be a casino expert…It’s incumbent on me to put together a team.”

That team is a bit different than the one that helped launch the idea five years ago, but one person who has remained is Eric Culver of Raton, the former owner of La Mesa Park from 1965 to 1975. Culver serves as general manager of racing for Horse Racing at Raton.

The partners investing the money for the Raton project are Moldenhauer, Marc Correra of LLMN Capital Management, and Ward Chilton of R6 Gaming Solutions. Correra is an investment broker who moved from New York to Santa Fe about five years ago. Chilton is recognized as a veteran of the gaming industry, including having worked as a consultant to Wells Fargo Bank’s Gaming Group. The Raton project is also working with Wells Fargo, which Moldenhauer identified as the largest lender to the gaming industry in the world.

Also working on the Raton project is Paul Micucci, who Moldenhauer described as a racetrack expert who led the Ontario government’s efforts in incorporating slots into tracks. The architect for the project is Toronto-based David Climans, whose firm’s specialties include horse tracks and casinos.

Moldenhauer was drawn to Raton as a site for a track and casino because of the city’s location on Interstate 25 and U.S. 87 and its location within what he calls the “five-state area” of northeast New Mexico, southern Colorado, the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, and southwest Kansas.

Moldenhauer also wants to play up Raton’s horseracing history when the state racing commission comes to town July 10. He asked people to contribute stories and photos they may have.

Carol Middleton has lived in Raton for only four years so she had never been to La Mesa Park in its heyday, but still, she called a new track and casino Raton’s “chance to come back to what you were.”

Middleton was one of numerous local residents who spoke at Wednesday’s meeting to express their support for the project. No opposition was voiced. Many of the people who spoke were former or current horsemen who trained or owned horses that ran at La Mesa Park, or people who had worked at La Mesa Park.

Ed Eagan suggested a contest be held to select a good name for the actual track and casino, something “exotic.”

All the residents who spoke looked forward to the positive economic impact they envisioned the track and casino would have on Raton. Many also talked about the city’s historic link to horseracing as the site of the state’s first track.

“When we lost the racetrack, Raton lost a part of itself,” said Ann Phillips.

Mayor Joe Apache cautioned those at Wednesday’s meeting that “it isn’t a done deal yet…We need to show the same enthusiasm” to the racing commission. The city is planning a downtown barbecue prior to the July 10 meeting. The meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. in the Shuler Theater. The chamber is planning to have specially-designed T-shirts - showing support for the track and casino - to give to the first 400 people at the meeting.

State racing commission Executive Director Julian Luna this week said the commission will likely make a final decision about the final racing license 30 to 60 days after the commission’s final public meetings in the communities that are seeking the license. Following the July 10 Raton meeting, the commission will hold similar public hearings in Pojoaque (for the Santa Fe application) July 22 and Tucumcari July 24. In addition, another racing commission meeting is expected to be held in Albuquerque before a final decision is made on the license.

Once an applicant is awarded a racing license, the applicant will then have to seek a gaming license from the New Mexico Gaming Control Board that oversees the casino aspect of the proposed facilities. Gaming board Deputy Executive Director Greg Saunders this week said his board and the racing commission are “working hand in hand,” although he “guarantee(d)” the gaming board would have different questions for an applicant than the racing commission has. He estimated a gaming license could be granted as soon as a month after a racing license is approved, but it could take longer depending on the questions and concerns of the gaming board.

Both Luna and Saunders agreed that if the financial and other background checks that have already been done in regard to the Raton racing application are OK, nothing else should prevent a gaming license from being granted if a racing license is approved.
(Source: Trinidad Times Independent)