I'm curious about the Siegel Suites that seem to be popping up everywhere in Las Vegas and the Southwest. Is there any connection between the ownership company and Bugsy Siegel? Or is the name simply a coincidence?
It’s very much a coincidence.
That’s not to say that there isn’t an interesting story behind the Siegel Group (which is in good standing with the Nevada Gaming Control Board).
Namesake Steve Siegel got his start 27 years ago at age 19 in southern California when he bought a single-bay auto-repair shop. When he sold it, he rolled the profits into a company that made children's furniture. By cannily cutting licensing deals with Mattel (Barbie), Nickelodeon ("Blue's Clues"), and the makers of Pokémon, Siegel leveraged his furniture lines into relationships with Target, Toys-R-Us, and other prominent retailers. The workforce grew from 10 to 500 employees.
Siegel then swerved back into the collision-repair business, picking up another auto-repair shop and negotiating exclusive relationships with insurance companies and SoCal auto dealerships. Between this and the furniture business, Siegel had the cash flow to speculate in distressed Los Angeles real estate, buying, rehabbing and flipping residential and retail properties (much as he would do with Las Vegas motels).
In 2004, seeing Las Vegas apartment complexes going on the market, Siegel began snatching them up and reinventing them as extended-stay motels, pioneering the Siegel Suites concept. A typical transaction involved the distressed Charlestonwood apartments at the intersection of Charleston Boulevard and Eastern Avenue. Siegel obtained the 4.6-acre property for $3.6 million, refurbished it, and reopened it as Las Residencias.
Some of Siegel’s deals involved taking a flyer into the gaming industry, as at North Las Vegas’ Siegel Suites & Slots and the Gold Spike downtown, a rundown property that Siegel bought, revamped, and restored to respectability in 2008. (Siegel sold it to Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project in 2013.) The Siegel Group has also added the Rumor and Artistan non-gaming hotels to its collection.
“We want to take over Vegas, one property at a time,” Siegel Group Director of Business Affairs Michael Crandall told the Las Vegas Sun when explaining why Siegel was expressly building a corporate headquarters kitty-corner from the Wynn Las Vegas golf course.
The Siegel Group successfully extended its gaming portfolio to the flanks of Mount Charleston when it bought The Resort on Mount Charleston. Siegel also picked up the derelict Atrium Hotel, next door to the Hard Rock, and announced a major redevelopment, but that has yet to come to fruition.
In the meantime, Siegel Group is enlarging its portfolio of lodging and retail properties to include the Malibu, California, and Reno-Sparks areas, along with New Mexico and Arizona. The Siegel Group, led by Steve Siegel, looks to keep burgeoning for some time to come.
