That dingbatty mess you’re contemplating is the proposed “master plan” for Bally’s Las Vegas. Or whatever it will be called. If it gets built. A big “if.” Since it centers upon the proposed—but still improbable—Sacramento Athletics stadium in the middle, it’s more that a colossal “IF.” Before we get into why this megaresort is highly unlikely to transpire, let’s unpack what passes for a design.
This jumble, intended to be built in three mega-phases, is the brainchild of Marnell Architecture. Perhaps the latter can explain where the initial 200+ hotel rooms required by Nevada statute will go. The hotel tower to your right in part of Phase II and the one to the far left is an unlikely Phase III. Perhaps Marnell hopes to shoehorn some rooms into that weird, 250-foot excrescence labeled “BALLY’S” on the street corner. We’re told it’s meant to be a “video tower,” battering eye-fatigued Las Vegas tourists into submission.
Access to the ballpark will be through a relatively narrow corridor (can you say “bottleneck”?) lined with F&B options. And retail. (We didn’t say this plan was without its clever aspects.) Dwarfed by a gargantuan sports book, the casino-to-be is way, way off to the right, fronting on Las Vegas Boulevard, almost like an afterthought. Speaking of afterthoughts, the spa is carelessly plunked atop both casino podium and convention center, all awkwardly stacked together. In fact, because the casino, day club (yes, there’s one of those), F&B, retail, etc., are all piled upon along the Las Vegas Strip and Tropicana Avenue, you’d be hard-pressed to see the eccentric-looking ballpark from the street. Maybe that’s the idea.
The whole thing smacks of desperation, incoherence and very wishful thinking. Bally’s Corp. Chairman Soo Kim might call it an “integrated resort” (the new euphemism for “casino”) but “disintegrated resort” would be a lot more like it. Not surprisingly, we are blandly assured that “We anticipate that the designs will evolve as we advance the project.” No kidding.
Compared to this muddle, Bally’s Chicago is a model of forethought, Resorts World Las Vegas an object lesson in coherence and Fontainebleau Las Vegas a work of pure genius. In other words, by pimping themselves out to the Athletics, Bally’s has hopelessly compromised whatever hopes for a cohesive megaresort it had. However, hopes are more like delusions. The company was able to finance Bally’s Chicago only by selling most of it to Gaming & Leisure Properties Inc. Bally’s borrowing capacity is tapped out, the company is groaning under colossal leverage and is about to be lumbered with the costs of a leveraged buyout by Standard General, a Hail Mary pass at lifting the languishing stock price.
No price tag is attached to Bally’s Las Vegas, although it obviously will run into untold billions of dollars, not least due to its disordered use of space. Will it even get past Phase I? If it makes it that far, it will be a gosh-darned Christmas miracle. All Kim has to offer is Monopoly money and bullshit. Throw in feckless A’s owner John Fisher and he’s in good company in that respect. Fisher will do anything to build a new ballpark … except pay for it. Bally’s naked ambition is to have GLPI pick up the tab, but it’s one heck of a lift for anybody, regardless of what GLPI’s Peter Carlino says to his shareholders. With all the smoke being blown up various and sundry asses on this misshapen progeny, be careful you don’t contract lung cancer.
Over in New Hampshire, there’s yet another complication in the tortured saga of sleazy casino owner Andy Sanborn. He was already under scrutiny for having redirected $844K of Covid-19 relief money into his own pocket, including buying luxury cars for himself and his missus. In a tacit admission of guilt, Sanborn offered to repay the dough, presumably off the ill-gotten capital gains he would make by selling his Concord hole in the wall, reportedly to Full House Resorts. Speaking of desperation moves, Full House CEO Dan Lee was rumored to be willing to spend $30 million for a teensy toehold in the Granite State.
Hold that thought. Sanborn was busted last week for “misrepresenting the revenue of his casino in Concord to receive additional money from the state of New Hampshire’s Main Street Relief Fund.” Remember, casinos were redlined by the Trump administration from getting Covid-relief dollars. It seems that Sanborn found himself a workaround. According to the state, Sanborn steered $188.5K of bailout dollars to his Win Win Win company, a move that looks now a lot like Lose Lose Lose. Does Full House want to give 30 million pieces of silver to an indicted felon? We wouldn’t rule it out.
For their part, Sanborn and his lawyers see this latest turn of events as part of a vast conspiracy to persecute him on the part of the big, bad attorney general. Or, as they whine, “The same AG who has been enjoined repeatedly for violations of Mr. Sanborn’s constitutional rights by three NH Superior Court judges, who has had his legal positions soundly rejected time and again by Administrative Law Judges, and whose office is currently facing potential sanctions for prosecutorial misconduct, has now arrested Mr. Sanborn on the eve of a sale to a qualified buyer.” Of course, the sale has been “on the eve” for weeks, if not months, as Sanborn seeks delay after delay after delay in the proceedings. We don’t mind Full House overpaying for a dubious asset. That’s capitalism. But further enriching the odious Sanborn seems beyond the pale.
Faithful readers will recall that Richard Schuetz recently found Rivers Pittsburgh to not only be a smoke-filled room but to be hosting at least one cigarette machine on the premises. That’s not just sleeping with the enemy (Big Tobacco), it’s being the enemy. Well, it seems things could get even worse at Rivers. It appears that a woman visiting the Pittsburgh gambling hall was showered with shit when a sewage pipe burst. Rita Romagnoli was allegedly peacefully playing slots when an overhead (a helluva place to put sewage) pipe ruptured, causing her to be “drenched with human fecal matter.” Ewwwww! This necessitated 15 days in the hospital with a bout of bacterial pneumonia.
As a consequence, the Romagnoli family is suing the Rush Street Gaming property for “pain, suffering, inconvenience, embarrassment, mental anguish, and emotional and psychological trauma.” We’re confident that Rush Street will countersue, claiming it was all Mrs. Romagnoli’s fault. After all, who doesn’t play a slot without assuming they’re going to reenact the climactic golden shower of Paul Verhoeven‘s Black Book movie? The Romagnolis are being relatively clement, suing for only $30K … and they’ve got a witness who says almost the very same thing happened to her. Rush Street should pay up, pronto, and clean up its act. Literally.
Has anyone considered that the curved shape of the hotel tower may be Vdara death ray 2.0, this time burning craters into Las Vegas Boulevard or blinding drivers?
That’s an excellent point, Gregory. But one wouldn’t expect Bally’s to have thought through such things — or to even remember the Death Ray, would we?