What is happening with the sale of the Hard Rock? Will all the same restaurants be there? Are they planning on renovating the hotel? What about current shows such as Raiding The Rock Vault and Magic Mike, will they still continue to play there? We’re big HRH fans. We hate to see too much change happen there.
If you’re hoping for a continuation of the status quo, brace yourself.
At the announcement of the Hard Rock’s purchase by a consortium led by Sir Richard Branson, the Virgin Airlines mogul remarked that the HRH had become a bit “tired.” He insisted, “We know how to design things to bring some magic back to it.”
Bosworth Hospitality Partners supremo Richard “Boz” Bosworth (who will be the new Hard Rock CEO) added that the ownership group is planning to spend “hundreds of millions of dollars" to transform the Hard Rock.
Among the changes would be the removal of the trademark giant-guitar marquee, to replaced with an enormous LED screen or something of that ilk, maybe an enormous V.
“We didn’t want some glass tower on the Strip,” said Virgin Hotels CEO Raul Leal, explaining Virgin’s preference for the more-boutiquey HRH. The company has only two other operational hotels, in Chicago and San Francisco, so the training wheels will still be on when it takes the keys to the Hard Rock. Branson, who has made two other runs at opening a hotel in Las Vegas, found the third time to be the charm. “I honestly just couldn’t find the right property,” he told Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Eli Segall.
Branson & Co. picked up the Hard Rock for a relative song — $500 million, compared to the $770 million that Morgans Hotel Group sank into it in 2006. As for expected changes, “Virgin Hotels tend to focus on common spaces for guests to mingle,” reports Travel & Leisure. The hotel will be renovated to have “1,504 chambers, grand chamber suites, and penthouse suites.” There will also be six (unspecified) restaurants, as well as new nightclubs. What few clues Branson has given as to the Hard Rock/Virgin’s future point toward an upscaling of its market niche, so you can probably kiss Magic Mike and Raiding the Rock Vault goodbye. (The latter has bounced all over Las Vegas, so it will probably find a new home somewhere.) Says a Virgin spokeswoman, ominously, “Guests can still enjoy the current roster of shows for now.”
As matters stand, not much of the original Hard Rock remains: a hotel wing and the circular casino. Morgans did a pretty good job of bastardizing the place by sticking new pieces on the front of the property, where they spoiled its architectural symmetry, in our opinion. Short of a complete overhaul, not much that can be done with the Hard Rock externally at this point, but Branson can — and will — shake, rattle, and roll things up inside.
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That Don Guy
Aug-26-2018
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