In early 2006, Aztar Corp., then-owner of the Tropicana, announced that it'd taken definite steps toward redeveloping the big old property on the south Strip. There had been several false starts over the years, but at that time, Aztar hired Marnell Corrao, one of the major casino construction companies in Las Vegas, to plan a new resort. The Tropicana also stopped accepting room reservations beyond April 14.
But two months later, Aztar signed an agreement with Pinnacle Corp., which owns casinos in Reno, Mississippi, Louisiana, Indiana, and Argentina, to sell its casinos for $38 per share, or $2.1 billion.
Two weeks later, Colony Capital, an aggressive casino company that owns Hilton casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City and Resorts in A.C., upped the ante for Aztar by offering $41 per share.
A week after that, Ameristar, which owns casinos in Missouri, Colorado, and Mississippi, came in with a bid of $42, or $2.25 billion.
Then, in mid-April, a fourth suitor joined the fray. Columbia Sussex bid $47 per share, or $2.47 billion, for Aztar.
Pinnacle responded by upping its offer and Ameristar matched it.
Columbia Sussex won the bidding war at $53 a share, or a total buyout price of $2.8 billion. The Kentucky-based corporation is privately owned (so its stock isn't traded publicly and it has no stock symbol); it completed the purchase of Aztar in January 2007. The company owned the Westin Casuarina in Las Vegas and the River Palms in Laughlin before the sale; since the sale, that roster now includes the Tropicana in Atlantic City, the MontBleu and Horizon resorts at South Lake Tahoe, and a small riverboat casino in Indiana. It also includes the Tropicana Express in Laughlin, whose name was recently changed from the Ramada Express; the move seems to indicate that the Tropicana brand is safe, regardless of Columbia Sussex's redevelopment plans for Las Vegas.
Columbia Sussex has indicated that it won't shut down the Tropicana. Instead, the 34-acre property will be renovated and expanded to the tune of another $2 billion.
Columbia Sussex's ambitions for the Trop are extensive. The radical expansion could turn the Trop into the Las Vegas's largest hotel-casino complex, with as many as 10,000 hotel and condo units, plus a million square feet of retail, dining, entertainment, and convention and meeting space.
Meanwhile, Columbia Sussex has laid off 300 workers at the Las Vegas Tropicana and more at its other casinos, in order to slash operating costs and focus on profits (the moves seem successful; according to a recent story in the Las Vegas Sun, though revenues are down, profits are up). Still, the Las Vegas Trop is an old and dated casino to begin with, and with the layoffs, service has reportedly suffered.
Construction on the expansion could have started as early as July, but it didn't. Yesterday in "Today's News," we reported that Columbia Sussex announced a delay of the start of the project until at least 2008, due to the current financial climate.
