What you’re seeing is the attempted renovation/reinvention of the Klondike Sunset under Carl Giudici. The old Klondike was synonymous with longtime casino veteran John Woodrum and, after his death in early 2014, widow Ellen Woodrum sold the Klondike to Giudici. The latter closed on the sale in September 2014 and promptly shuttered the property. Giudici, former owner of Club Fortune Casino, announced that he would rehabilitate the property and that it would be closed for as long as a year. He is, as your query highlights, lagging on his timetable.
Giudici, who used to own half a dozen casinos, mostly in the Reno-Sparks area, has been looking for a Vegas asset to replace Club Fortune. During Station Casinos’ bankruptcy, in 2010, he offered to buy some of the low-hanging fruit of the Station orchard. Something of a bankruptcy hawk, he also descended upon financially distressed Herbst Gaming (now Affinity Gaming) with a $504 million buyout offer but was rebuffed.
Never a very prepossessing property at the best of times, the Klondike Sunset was a shadow of its former self by the time Giudici snapped it up. Its slot inventory of 300 machines had been trimmed to 65 in 2013, after the Nevada Gaming Control Board discovered that Woodrum did not have enough cash on hand to cover jackpots. (According to a contemporaneous Yelp report, the table games were removed at roughly the same time.) After buying and closing the Klondike, Giudici asked the Henderson City Council for – and was granted – a one-year "nonoperational" gaming entitlement to cover the time he expected to spend redoing the casino, which was built in 1989. (The Klondike Sunset never had the cachet of Woodrum’s original Klondike, a converted motel on the south Strip, demolished in 2008. Celebrity patrons as diverse as Tom Jones and Bob Stupak repaired to the Klondike when they were looking to unwind.)
Giudici arrived in the Vegas market in 1999, purchasing the defunct Triple J Bingo Hall & Casino and revamping it with a Las Vegas theme, later to reopen it as Club Fortune Casino. "Done up in art deco-style are images of ‘Vegas Vic,’ the Glitter Gulch, the ‘Welcome to Las Vegas’ sign and various sights of the Strip," reported the Las Vegas Sun. Saying of the Reno business climate, "Everything seems to be a hassle up there," Giudici praised the attitude he found in Sin City. "It just seems like it's easier to get things done down here … Everyone says, ‘How can we help you make it happen?’"
Giudici’s plan for the Klondike was to reinvent it as The Mint. But last June 24, the City of Henderson was formally notified that Giudici had "encountered health issues that severely impacted the licensing efforts and planned remodeling of the casino," and that an extension of the property’s non-operational gaming entitlement was needed. (The Klondike enjoys grandfathered status as one of those Nevada resort-casinos that predated the 200-hotel-room requirement, an entitlement that has to periodically be renewed.)
In a letter to the city, Giudici said he had "experienced multiple medical issues. First, I suffered [redacted] (October 7, 2014). Shortly thereafter, I had [redacted] (March 5, 2015). Both events, and their subsequent recovery and rehabilitation issues, severely interrupted my ability to provide the attention necessary to obtain the needed licenses and to design, develop and proceed with a remodel of the Klondike."
The Club Fortune sale proceedings "consumed the medically limited time to address Klondike business matters." Giudici hoped that the proceeds of the Club Fortune sale -- $14 million in cash and 1.2 million shares of Nevada Gold stock – would enable him to finance the Klondike makeover. (Giudici maintains an officer at Club Fortune as a consultant, although several calls there and elsewhere failed to track him down.)
Giudici requested an additional extension of the non-operational gaming status through mid-August 2016, which passed unanimously. So the reinvention of the Klondike appears to be a going concern. Just when Giudici will fulfill his plans, however, appears very much dependent on the state of his health. Or, as he said, "I had a stroke in October, which [if] I hadn’t, I’d have that darned place open by now … I don’t know exactly when I’m going to have that place finished," he told the Henderson City Council. "I think it’s going to be around April 1, actually April 2 because April 1 is April Fool’s Day, so I’ll probably open it April 2." Mark your calendar.
