Kudos to Station Casinos for agreeing to give its employees first dibs on apartments to be built near Fiesta Henderson. This is a story that fell through the cracks recently but deserves to be highlighted. The land was originally set aside for expansion of Fiesta H., but the locals-casino market is pretty saturated at present. (And, one suspects, Station could probably use the capital that can be realized by selling the land to developer Trammell Crow.)

Affordable housing, on the other, has been in short supply in the Vegas area. This is probably a crackpot suggestion, but I've often wondered if Harrah's Entertainment was ill-advised to start shuttering and razing the myriad apartment complexes it bought up behind its Barbary Coast/Flamingo/Imperial Palace/Harrah's Las Vegas agglomeration.

Construction workers have been an underserved market for housing (many were hanging their helmets at the Klondike before it closed). Even if only Harrah's Caesars Palace expansion is still in train -- and that's a big "only" -- the company might have been able to turn a dime or two off of all those newly acquired domiciles, as well as giving its workforce a place to live that's within a stone's throw of the Strip.

Like I said, probably cockamamie, but it's been rattling around in my brain for so long that I thought I'd fling it out there for the heck of it.

Another good Station idea is to 'double up' on its concert bookings once Aliante Station's Access Showroom opens its doors. At least some acts will be shared between Aliante and either Green Valley Ranch or Boulder Station (whose Railhead is currently suffering the indignity of being pressed into service as a temporary buffet; it's not one of the comfier dining experiences in town).

As Mike Weatherford notes, with gas prices being what they are, it's an iffy proposition whether Station patrons will drive 25 miles or so to see a concert; Station's solution effectively halves the problem. It also means that, as it seems to be my karma that Station books jazz-piano stylist Keiko Matsui for dates when I'm either out of town or sick, my odds of actually catching her in performance have slightly improved.

Boyd Gaming's Morgans deal defended. A reader writes, "I can't blame Boyd for wanting so badly to open the whole [Echelon] at once.  All they have to do is look down the street at the Palazzo chaos to see what a disaster it can be to open in stages or half-assed (and remember that the Venetian had the same problem). 

"Venetian has obviously overcome it but who knows how much of Palazzo's current problems have some basis in the fact that when the hotel opened the sign wasn't even built and there was still a huge construction project in front. I think the only thing that a resort can get away with opening in stages these days would be the hotel itself -- nobody cares if half the rooms are yet to be built ... when the resort is otherwise functioning at 100%.
 
"Steve Wynn didn't open his doors until everything was in place, and look at the attention and publicity he got for it. Palazzo was exactly the opposite."

Those are all excellent points and well worth considering. Boyd's prostration before fickle Morgans Hotel Group is still embarrassing, though.