MVP: The parcel shaded blue is the most expensive purchased by the Legends Resort Casino to date at more than $907,000 per acre. The red-shaded property, in which JP Doug Skelton was an investor, sold for about $350,000 an acre.
With the fate of a casino in Russellville still up in the air, several local landowners have already hit jackpots with property sales to Legends Resort, the Cherokee Nation business entity that holds a state permit for a casino resort.
County assessor records show at least 12 parcels totaling 97.9 acres have been sold to Legends since January for $22.5 million, or more than $230,000 an acre on average. The sale prices vary, but all were over $100,000 an acre, some for pasture land or otherwise undeveloped tracts.
The most valuable piece of property was purchased on March 30 from the Duvall Family Partnership — 4.38 acres on Hob Nob Road for $3.975 million, or more than $907,000 an acre.
One transaction that has caused some local buzz was the sale of 6.2 acres, which touches Hob Nob Road just south of the proposed casino location at the Highway 334 exit from Interstate 40. It was sold to Freestone LLC for $2.2 million, or about $350,000 an acre. It’s drawn attention because it came April 1, barely eight months after Freestone had acquired the land from the Newton Brothers Partnership for $185,000, or about $30,000 an acre. One of the owners of Freestone is Justice of the Peace Doug Skelton, who’s been an advocate of the Cherokee casino from the outset, through its offer of a $40 million economic development package for local governments and a vote to rescind a local ordinance (ruled unconstitutional by a court) that required a Pope County vote before a casino could proceed.
Is there an ill appearance? Skelton says no. He talked to me at length about development of the deal. Billy Newton, a Russellville pharmacist who led the family partnership that sold the property on which Skelton’s group scored a $2 million profit, said he also holds no ill will. He also said he’s been surprised, and gratified, that since he congratulated Skelton that Skelton has offered to share the wealth with him and four other relatives. Newton and Skelton confirmed they’d been in discussions in the last week on a profit-sharing arrangement, but didn’t disclose details. Skelton also wouldn’t disclose his partners in the Freestone LLC or his percentage of the corporation. He said that, as far as he knew, Legends was unaware of his ownership in the LLC.
A potential big loser in the deal someday is Legends. Its permit remains delayed by court challenges (though court decisions have been running its way) and a campaign is underway financed by the Choctaw Nation to repeal the portion of the constitutional amendment that authorized a Pope County casino in 2018. The Choctaws don’t want competition in Russellville for their casino across the Arkansas line from Fort Smith. They’ve also enlisted Little Rock’s Friday Law Firm in their fight to defend their petition campaign from Cherokee attacks. One of the Friday firm’s major clients is the Oaklawn casino and race track 70 miles south of Russellville, though Oaklawn hasn’t contributed directly to the $3.3 million already raised by the Choctaws to get the repeal amendment on the ballot. (The repeal amendment, should it succeed, is laden with potential legal challenges, but that’s a story for another day.)
The real estate investments alone show how serious Legends is about a major investment in Russellville. It is continuing to acquire property for a $250 million resort. Skelton emphasized the Arkansas Supreme Court decision in October 2021 to knock a Mississippi company out of contention for the casino permit in favor of Legends, “That’s when everything changed for everybody,” Skelton said.
Skelton said Legends had a broader development plan than the Gulfside Casino Partnership. It envisions controlling broad swaths of land for a casino, hotels, retail, recreation and other purposes. Prices zoomed when purchases began in January and are still zooming, he said.
Back to the beginning on the Newton-Skelton land deal:
Newton said the land had been in his family for generations. “I hunted crawdads in a creek there when I was a child.” It has never been developed and one heir to the property, originally owned by his father and an uncle, didn’t want to sell. After she died, the family sought buyers but had been unable for years to find takers. Then the casino plans developed. The Newtons’ real estate agent found interest. At that time, Gulfside was in the lead for the permit. Newton said he got an appraisal and Skelton’s LLC was the first to offer the appraised price.
Skelton said his group viewed the purchase as something of a gamble. He said the acreage price was the highest anybody had paid for similar property. And while he said his group hoped there’d be opportunities, say for a hotel at a highway exit, it wasn’t a sure thing. Legal challenges were underway then — and still — against any casino. The Legends victory in the courts changed things, particularly since the Freestone land was immediately south of the Legends casino site.
Newton said he learned of the windfall sale recently and last week called Skelton, with whom he’s shared a blind in a hunting club for 17 years, to congratulate him. “I said, ‘You did good and I wished I’d held it longer.’” But Newton added, “I don’t think anyone would have seen that coming.”
So he said he was surprised when Skelton called him back and said, “Let’s share the wealth.”
Newton said, “He didn’t have to do that. He’d done nothing wrong.”
Skelton said Newton’s realtor contacted him about the original sale, not the reverse. He said he understood several others had resisted the appraised price. “At that time, it was a lot of money.”
What would Skelton say to those who question his profitable land sale to an entity he’d supported with votes as a public official? After a long pause, he said, “I don’t guess I know how to answer that. That is presently the market value of the land in that area. If I was a standalone investor, I wouldn’t have done it.” But he added, that with the evaluations being set and paid to other landowners, “I would be a fool not to sell.”
He acknowledges taking a strong position in support of the Cherokee position early and that a lot of people are still upset about that (he figures his loss in a recent race for state representative was at least a partial reflection of that.)
“I don’t gamble. I don’t go to casinos,” he said. “But when you have an opportunity to create a thousand good paying job, plus all the tax revenues we will receive, I had to get behind it. It just made good business sense.”
Newton repeats the same arguments for the Cherokee project and notes that the driving force in opposition now is less local people than the Choctaws, whose interest is protecting their business. They once expressed an interest in the Russellville permit, too.
Newton said Skelton did nothing illegal or unethical and “we got the price we asked for.”
Yes, he said, $2 million “is a lot of crawdads.” But he said of Skelton: “If somebody is trying to make him out to be a villain in this, from my side he’s an angel. It’s been a pleasant surprise he’s been willing to share it with us.”
Skelton’s key votes for the Cherokee proposal came in August and October of 2019. When his group bought the 6.2 acres in August 2021, it was two months before the Arkansas Supreme Court reversed a lower court favoring Gulfside of Mississippi. In November 2021, the Arkansas Racing Commission awarded the casino permit to Legends.
Legends purchases began in January. The purchases:
JANUARY: 16.15 acres from the Harrell Family Limited Partnership for $2.5 million
MARCH: 4.38 acres from the Duvall Family Partnership for $3.975 million.
APRIL: 6.2 acres from Freestone LLC for $2.2 million; 19.09 acres from Larry Dilbeck for $2.3 million.
MAY: 5.23 acres from Tim Baker and Will and Laura Wetzel (Wetzel is, like Skelton, a member of Freestone LLC) for $750,000; 3.65 acres from Daniel Stoltz and Mark and Janna Saywer for $575,000.
JUNE: 7.7 acres from the Mary G. Barnes Family Trust for $2.012 million; 19.1 acres from the Community Christian School for $5.35 million; 1.78 acres from Tim and Teresa Huddleston for $200,000; 11.46 acres from S.S.B. Investments (headed by Shawn Bates of Dover) for $1.7 million.
JULY: 1.45 acres from James and Destranae Cotton for $575,000; 1 acre from Edward Lindenberg and Margie Steuber for $400,000.
The properties are a mix of residential and commercial. In most cases, the land had been held by the sellers for many years.
It is possible there are more related land sales under names other than Legend Resorts. I’ve asked a spokesman for Legends for an update on its investment to date in the project.
UPDATE: A spokesman for the Cherokee Nation got back with me Wednesday. She said negotiations are still in progress for three more parcels totaling about 42 acres on either side of Hob Nob Road. No details yet, but the sellers for all parcels will be John Martin Dufek, Kristina Lee Dufek, Michelle Huck ad Ralph Huck
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