May 29--SARATOGA SPRINGS -- Officials from Saratoga Casino and Raceway announced plans to expand on Tuesday, come full table games or not.

The plan calls for a $30 million expansion that includes a 120-room hotel with guest spa, indoor pool and lobby bar, a 24,000-square-foot multipurpose event center and a fine dining restaurant.

If all goes as scheduled, construction will begin in the spring of 2014 -- earlier if possible -- and be ready to open in the spring of 2015.

"We are a world-class gaming facility," part-owner Jim Featherstonhaugh said inside Vapor Night Club. "Our next step is to turn ourselves into an international tourist resort."

Earlier this year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo outlined a plan to put three resort casinos in upstate New York to draw tourists north who might otherwise patronize gambling establishments in Connecticut and New Jersey. On top of that, a July 16 referendum will be held in Springfield, Mass., to see whether that city will allow a casino to go forward.

The expansion includes adding 260 jobs to the racino, bringing the number of employees to 900 and yearly payroll expenses to $27 million.

Featherstonhaugh said the expansion plan is solid, regardless of what becomes of the full casino plan. Saratoga Casino and Raceway now has 1,778 slot machines, including electronic table games.

"If we get a full-fledged casino with table games at an appropriate tax rate in relation to other facilities, that probably would expand (this). It is a plan that is expandable should circumstances arise," Featherstonhaugh said.

"I can tell you that if there are going to be casinos located upstate in the region we are, we will actively bid on it," Featherstonhaugh added. "You may have heard the governor's recent press conference ... that in terms of investment, that facilities such as ourselves who are already in business would be given credit for the capital expenditures they have already made. That makes us comfortable going ahead and doing this at this time."

The plan calls for the hotel and event center to be built to the left of where Vapor, Garden Buffet and 440 additional slot machines were added in 2007.

Based on a feasibility study done for the racino, Featherstonhaugh said he expects anywhere from 20,000 to 25,000 room nights per year would be generated from people who would not stay in Saratoga now. He also said the hotel would be the closest lodging to Saratoga Race Course and, not including the Gideon Putnam -- which the Raceway company helps to run -- to Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

The expansion also would generate an additional $1.7 million for New York's horse-racing and breeding industries.

Featherstonhaugh said the racino drew 2.2 million visitors last year, and while he admitted that 80 percent of them come from an easily drive-able distance, many of the others would prefer to stay. The hotel would also attract customers who do well at the casino and might not have arranged a place to stay.

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