NEW TOWN — The chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes says property the tribe officially purchased on Friday in Las Vegas and property it purchased in that city earlier are investments for the tribe and its membership.

MGM Resorts International in Las Vegas reportedly announced on Friday the sale of land that it owns across from the Luxor known as the Village property, which was the site of the mass shooting at the 2017 Route 91 Harvest Festival.

According to a letter apparently from MGM Resorts International CEO Bill Hornbuckle, posted on a Twitter page, the land does not include “a portion of the land donated to Clark County to house the permanent memorial honoring the victims and heroes of 1 October.”

The letter also states “The Three Affiliated Tribes have demonstrated that they care about our community, its future and, of course, its past.”

Tribal Chairman Mark Fox said on Saturday that in 2020 the tribe purchased slightly more than 8 ½ acres located one block from the Las Vegas Strip and across the street from the recent acquisition. He said the earlier purchased property was from a private seller and obtained in a foreclosure sale during the COVID 19 pandemic.

“Why that was so critical is both pieces for us are about investment,” said Fox. “We’re looking for ways to invest our money so we earn in our investment account with Goldman Sachs, and it’s money that we invest for our people just so we get good returns.” He said the property they obtained in 2020 in Las Vegas was purchased for $12 million and the current market value of the property now is more than $30 million.

Fox said they looked at the recently purchased property – a 13-acre site – for the same reason. ”

That’s the same thing for us. It’s an investment” he said. He said the sale was finalized Friday morning.

The sale price of the MGM property was not disclosed.

Fox said they had information that MGM might be willing to sell the property so about a year ago they approached MGM, including its CEO, and asked if they would be willing to sell it.

“To our own good fortune they said that they would consider it,” Fox said. “That’s really what we’ve been doing for about a year is negotiating that with them and, ultimately, they agreed.” Since that time, he said, they’ve been working on everything that’s necessary for a major transaction.

“We’re very happy what we’ve acquired from MGM,” Fox said.

He said MGM and the tribe agreed that two acres would be removed from the transaction because a memorial site will be built there.

“We’ll do whatever we can to have that because as a tribe we’re very sensitive to what occurred there, and we want to make sure it’s done with respect. We’ll be helping whatever way we can with that,” Fox said.

“The other 13 acres belongs to us. We have not made any final determinations about exactly what we’re going to do with it,” he said.

He said they could keep it as an investment and wait for the market to go up. He said they have been assured it will increase in value.

“Or we could put together a development. We’re going to explore those options over the course of time in the next year of what we can do with it,” Fox said.

He said there are two important points to this.

“When we make investments like this, we expect returns. We’ve had returns on nearly everything that we’ve invested in,” he said. “What do we do with this investment? That’s how we build schools, health facilities and provide support to our membership and elders, et cetera. It’s just one more way of getting returns and investing on behalf of our people. That’s number one.

“Number two, in a gaming forum perspective we have suffered considerable losses with our gaming operations here on Fort Berthold (Reservation) with the casino because of the rapid expansion of gaming in the state. So we have been looking for other ways to bring in revenue and this is one possible way of doing it to offset our losses caused by what is happening in the state,” Fox said.

The Three Affiliated Tribes – the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation — own the 4 Bears Casino & Lodge, west of New Town.

Fox said three other tribal nations have previously acquired existing casino properties in Las Vegas: Mohegan Nation, San Manuel Band of Mission Indians and the Seminole Nation.