Another casino will probably not be built there again.
Or to put it another way, a lot of major things would have to happen for site owner MGM Resorts International, which tore down the 300-room Nevada Landing to further a failed plan to redevelop a casino on that spot along I-15, sort of a No Man's Land between Primm and Henderson.
MGM inherited the property from Mandalay Resort Group in 2005. Mandalay, in turn, had acquired it when it bought Gold Strike Resorts in 1995. It was memorable for its design: a pair of mock riverboats, separated by a spire, rising from the desert scrub.
Then-CEO J. Terrence Lanni intended to supplant Nevada Landing with a master-planned community, primarily intended for MGM employees. It was to also feature retail and a new locals-oriented hotel-casino.
This ambitious redevelopment scheme, however, was contingent on the construction of a satellite airport, intended for international flights, near the town of Jean. When that project was delayed and ultimately dropped in favor of Terminal Three at McCarran Airport, MGM's neighborhood-in-the-desert blew away like a tumbleweed.
In addition, like many of its non-core assets, Nevada Landing didn't figure into MGM's long-term plans. The company had recently shucked two casinos in Laughlin and unloaded all three in Primm (a deal in which it took the Herbst family to the cleaners, eventually sending Herbst Gaming into bankruptcy).
Since then, the company has continued to shift its focus to large-scale casinos in areas that have critical mass, shuffling off fringe properties like Railroad Pass Casino near Boulder City, and even Gold Strike, of which it thought so little that it was sold it to Jett Gaming, which now operates it under the Terrible's brand. About the only commitment that MGM still makes to the Nevada bargain market is Circus Circus, which has the dual advantages of appealing heavily to Hispanic customers and sitting on an enormous underdeveloped piece of real estate.
MGM operated Nevada Landing from 2004 until early 2007, when it announced that it would be closed and torn down.
"A lot of customers are upset because this is a pretty neat hotel. We don't have lions, tigers, and bears, but we do have a lot of fun," said Nevada Landing's "Captain Lucky," Larry Glen Anderson at the time.
Although the closing was set for April, business must have tailed off dramatically, because MGM locked the doors a month early, on March 20, 2007. It sat empty for another year before they got around to actually demolishing the joint. (Although the property was leveled, the marquee stood like a tombstone for three more years, torn down in 2010.)
As the timing of the closure and demolition suggests, MGM pulled the trigger on redevelopment during the cusp of the Great Recession, just before the you-know-what hit the fan. MGM had its hands full finishing CityCenter. And an East Coast version of CityCenter, intended for Atlantic City, was dropped so fast practically no one remembers it and MGM could find no takers for the vacant land.
Besides, Gold Strike Hotel & Gambling Hall, across the highway, was still there to service gamblers. Gold Strike's superior physical plant won it the nod to stay open when MGM was faced with a choice of closing one casino or the other.
"What we've also seen is that there is more business driving into Las Vegas than out, which helps the casino on the east [inbound] side of the highway," Lanni explained.
As for whether Nevada Landing was losing money while it was still in business, there is no such indication, but MGM did downsize hotel operations at Gold Strike in 2011, saying the economic recovery in Las Vegas had bypassed Jean. Neither casino was a money-spinner. Between them, they generated $6 million in annual cash flow.
After Nevada Landing was bulldozed, amateur archaeologists went digging in the foundations and found chips from its predecessor, Pop's Oasis (demolished in 1988). One might still find some Nevada Landing debris out in the sagebrush, but MGM has done such a good job of eradicating the casino, which only lasted 20 years, that it’s probably slim pickings out there.
In any event, failing some major transportation or manufacturing-related development in nearby Ivanpah, it’s probable that the Nevada Landing site will remain dormant for years to come.
