While the residents of Ellenville and Wawarsing discuss plans for their future tied to agritourism and rail trails, senior housing and services and community building, Michael Treanor of Nevele fame has just announced a new, scaled-down $100 million resort plan for the historic property where he'd been planning to put a 450 plus room casino resort.

"While we are disappointed that the Nevele was not recommended for a casino license, we are still committed to redeveloping the property, creating economic opportunity for area residents and returning the Catskills Region to its former glory," he said in a press release Wednesday. "Having devoted much time and effort to preparing the Nevele for redevelopment, completing the SEQRA process, and most importantly having rallied the entire region in an unprecedented manner around the Nevele as the catalyst for revitalizing southern Ulster County, letting those efforts go to waste is not considered an option for Ellenville. Our 'Plan B' for the Nevele will complement the planned Sullivan County casino project at Montreign and bring real economic opportunity to southern Ulster County."

The new plan involves the development of a world-class destination sports facility with four, full-sized baseball fields and eight regulation fields for soccer, field hockey and lacrosse, plus 750 video lottery terminals (VLTs) should they be approved via legislation put forth by state assemblyman Kevin Cahill for Ulster County, and now seeking a state senate sponsor.

The proposed new Nevele "Sportsplex" would be built on the Nevele resort property and the neighboring site of the former Horses in the Sun (HITS) venue in Wawarsing, which the development team acquired control of last year. Concurrent with the development of the sports facility, much of the existing Nevele resort buildings will be demolished and a new main building will be constructed to connect the redeveloped Tower and Empire buildings. Golf, skiing, skating and all other recreational facilities at the resort will be upgraded and reopened, and a new indoor aquatics center would be built.

"Sports tourism is a $10 billion business in the U.S. alone," continued Treanor. "The New York metropolitan area has a dearth of high-quality destination athletic facilities. It's common for families in the area to travel as far as Virginia, South Carolina, Florida and California for destination sporting events. This creates an important opportunity for Ulster County to capitalize on its historic strength — tourism."

The developer added that the VLT component would help make the financing of the sports plans viable.