BUFFALO - Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, preservationists and anti-gambling groups will go to court next week to try to halt construction of a Seneca Indian Nation casino in the city.

The group on Friday announced plans to file a lawsuit in U.S. District Court Tuesday that claims federal agencies, including the Department of the Interior, ignored laws governing the approval process for gambling on Indian land. They'll ask a judge to declare the casino illegal.

The announcement came as the Senecas celebrated the partial opening of a 26-story luxury hotel adjacent to their existing casino in Niagara Falls.

The Senecas Friday opened the first 10 floors of the hotel, which towers over the Niagara Falls skyline, with plans to open the full hotel in March.

The Senecas' broke ground on the Buffalo casino Dec. 8 on nine acres of land currently occupied by an early 1900's grain elevator complex which preservationists say is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

In addition to challenging the casino approval process, the lawsuit will claim that government officials did not consider the social and environmental effects of a casino on historical and natural resources, the plaintiffs said.

“The rule of law is only as strong as the will to abide by it and to enforce it,” said Joel Rose, co-chairman of Citizens Against Casino Gambling in Erie County, “and sometimes it falls to private citizens to step forward for the public good.”

Others involved in the lawsuit include the National Coalition Against Gambling Expansion, the Preservation Coalition of Erie County and the Campaign for Buffalo. The Senecas' Buffalo casino would be the third and final one allowed under the tribe's 2002 gambling compact with Gov. George Pataki.