{"id":114430,"date":"2015-02-19T19:53:50","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T02:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/casino-adds-parking-facility-for-trucks-passing-through-city\/"},"modified":"2015-02-19T19:53:50","modified_gmt":"2015-02-20T02:53:50","slug":"casino-adds-parking-facility-for-trucks-passing-through-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/casino-adds-parking-facility-for-trucks-passing-through-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Casino adds parking facility for trucks passing through city"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=7148f9ef-3b9e-402e-982b-cef228d3efd5&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" srcset=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=7148f9ef-3b9e-402e-982b-cef228d3efd5&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=800 800w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=7148f9ef-3b9e-402e-982b-cef228d3efd5&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=1200 1200w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=7148f9ef-3b9e-402e-982b-cef228d3efd5&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=1800 1800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 2000px\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1330\" alt=\"Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Chairman Manuel Heart cuts the ribbon on a new commercial truck parking lot at the Ute Mountain Casino on Feb. 16. From left: casino marketing staffers Brad Clauson and Craig Welch; Manuel Heart, secretary Priscilla Blackhawk-Rentz, economic development specialist Tawnie Knight, tribal vice chairman Juanita Plentyholes, and Ute Junior Miss Talia Whyte.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Chairman Manuel Heart cuts the ribbon on a new commercial truck parking lot at the Ute Mountain Casino on Feb. 16. From left: casino marketing staffers Brad Clauson and Craig Welch; Manuel Heart, secretary Priscilla Blackhawk-Rentz, economic development specialist Tawnie Knight, tribal vice chairman Juanita Plentyholes, and Ute Junior Miss Talia Whyte.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">The Cortez Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Ute Mountain Casino is in growth mode, officials say, and in response a new parking facility for commercial trucks is now open.<\/p>\n<p>The roughly 60-truck capacity lot is directly across from the Travel Center, and includes new lighting and security cameras for safety.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is about economic development,\u201d said Ute Mountain Ute tribal chairman Manuel Heart at a Feb. 16 ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new lot. The Ute Mountain Ute economic development division partially funded the $500,000 lot engineering and construction project. Members of the casino staff as well as tribal leadership were in attendance to bless the new lot, and celebrate the first 18-wheeler rolling through.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re doing this together,\u201d Heart said. \u201cWhen we start looking at (Highway) 491, and these trucks coming down, giving them a place here will help us with economic development.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The new commercial truck lot is one of several other growth-centric endeavors the Ute Mountain Casino is embarking on. Chairman Heart said the casino was \u201clooking at a possible hotel expansion\u201d, and casino chief financial officer Ikrom Mamatmuminov noted several improvement projects that are in the works or completed, including the installation a new Point of Sale system to streamline casino staff and customer transactions, as well as the addition of 20 new slot machines. Additionally, the Travel Center has just signed a 10-year contract with Exxon-Mobil which will help fund future projects, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRevenues are up and we are experiencing more traffic,\u201d he said. \u201cAt least 15 percent more than the year before.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>leaders bless lot, welcome 18-wheelers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":114431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5742,5735],"tags":[60,144,1879,547],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-114430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-news","tag-montezuma-county","tag-towaoc","tag-ute-mountain-casino","tag-ute-mountain-ute-indian-tribe"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114430"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=114430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}