OXFORD — Jobs — how soon, how many and who will get them — dominated the conversation during a press conference Friday morning as owners of Black Bear Entertainment detailed their plans to build a $165 million resort casino on Route 26.

“I’m not just in it for the money,” said Bob Bahre of Alton, N.H., the former owner of Oxford Plains Speedway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway. “I’m in it for the jobs.”

Voters in a statewide referendum last week approved by a 1 percent margin a casino in Oxford County, subject to local approval. Opponents have requested a recount, which will begin in late November.

Bahre, a longtime businessman who maintains a home on Paris Hill, was among the group of owners who spoke to a standing-room-only crowd Friday at the Town Office on Pleasant Street.

The owners group had gathered to unveil the location — 100 acres atop Pigeon Hill about a half-mile from the Androscoggin County line — of their project and to explain how it would be built.

“We don’t want to get rich, we’re just looking to work,” said Bill Penfold, owner of Oxford Auto Salvage and vice president of VIP Charters, a bus-touring company.

Penfold said he was worried that local independent contractors will be left out as Black Bear moves forward with the first phases of its resort development.

The company could break ground on a 65,000-square-foot building as early as next spring, said Jim Boldebook, a Black Bear partner and owner of an advertising firm in Biddeford.

Boldebook said people interested in work can submit their names at Black Bear’s website, mainecasino.com. He said that as Black Bear moves closer to construction, it will review that list first. The group is looking into job training for blackjack dealers and other staff, either on-site or through local community colleges, Boldebook said.

Suzanne Grover of Norway, a Black Bear partner along with her husband, Rupert, said they have been employing local people at their company, Grover Gundrilling, in Norway for decades. She said they were committed to the local work force and getting people back to work.

“We’ve invested here in Maine,” she said of the Black Bear owners group. “What we say we are going to do is what we are going to do.”

Black Bear owners have quoted a study by a University of Maine economist saying the casino, over time, would create an estimated 2,700 jobs. That includes 700 jobs at the resort, with another 1,000 support-related jobs in the immediate area and another 1,000 throughout the state.

Also in attendance Friday was Black Bear Entertainment President Steve Barber, former president of Barber Foods in Portland.

Master plan

Along with the Black Bear owners were what Rob Lally, a Black Bear partner and the group’s treasurer, called “an army of consultants,” some of whom had been surveying potential sites for weeks before the announcement.

Lally is part owner of Mt. Abram ski area in Greenwood.

Several Maine companies are working with Black Bear Entertainment, including Main-Land Development Consultants of Livermore Falls, Maine Traffic Resources of Gardiner, Sweet Associates of Falmouth and Summit Geoengineering Services of Lewiston.

“These are Maine businesses that are going to help us with the site,” Lally said.

The only company outside Maine was Connecticut-based JCJ Architecture, which designed the master plan map.

The plan showed a five-year, three-phase project, beginning with a 65,000-square-foot casino, lounge and restaurant building with slot machines and table games. Phases two and three would add a 200-room hotel and a spa, convention center and parking garage. The master plan also included an RV park and snowmobile and ATV parking with access to local trails.

Along Route 26, on land currently used by the Hall family to grow crops for their Crestholm Farm produce stand, the area will be used as the resort chef’s garden. Farm owner Suzanne Hall said she was told her family could keep farming the land for the next five years.

The 100-acre casino site is on land her father, former Oxford Selectman Evan Thurlow, sold to Black Bear Entertainment.

Local effect

Linda Walbridge of the Western Maine Economic Development Committee said the casino will be a boon to local businesses.

“People may go to the casino and bet for a little while, but then they may go out and white-water raft, look around the area, eat in a restaurant, buy antiques,” she said.

Cyndi Robbins, owner of Poland Spring Inn, the Poland Spring Country Club and Cyndi’s Dockside Restaurant in Poland, said the development means she could run her resort inn year-round. Even without the country club staff, she said, it would keep about 100 jobs that normally disappear in the winter.

Robbins said she plans to run shuttle buses along the 8-mile stretch from Poland Spring Inn to the casino.

Not everyone is happy with being near the casino. Dallas Henry, an outspoken critic during the campaign, is a pastor at Hosanna New Testament Church on Schoolhouse Road in Welchville village, which is down Pigeon Hill from the casino site.

Henry said he met recently with a group of pastors concerned about gambling debt leading more people to ask the church for assistance.

“We’re hoping for the best,” Henry said. “We’re just concerned the community is going to be dealing with a real mess.”