With all the development near the new stadium, does Boyd have any plans for the Wild Wild West? It seems like a not so prime property sitting on some prime real estate.
Days Inn at Wild Wild West is not owned by Boyd Gaming but by Station Casinos, which also holds title to a large swath of adjacent land. During the go-go 2000s, Station planned a megaresort for this space, one even bigger and more expensive than CityCenter. However, since going through bankruptcy, Station has approached development cautiously. It has even put some of its land bank, long thought to be a reliable backstop for the company, on the open market, but so far has found no takers. Among the parcels marketed in vain are the old Castaways site, a large parcel just below South Point, and some non-gaming-enabled land way up on Losee Road on the northern beltway.
What Station has done with its money is to make one important acquisition — the Palms for $312.5 million — and re-do its oldest casino, Palace Station. Note that both properties are close to the Strip, as is Wild Wild West.
At the Palms, Station is investing $485 million in a three-phase makeover, of which Phase One has just been rolled out. Station re-landscaped the entrance, replaced the marquee, revamped the (previously underwhelming) buffet, added a VIP check-in lounge, scattered public art around the property — some of it from Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta’s private collections — and rejuvenated the casino floor with 40 new table games and 1,100 new slots. A high-end gaming salon was also added, as was a steakhouse, Scotch 80.
At Palace Station, the company also redid the buffet, as well as the bingo room, enlarged the casino floor (500 more slot machines), plus added luxury movie theaters and four new restaurants. Among the things that went out during the makeover was the railroad theme, replaced with a sleeker, more contemporary exterior look. (The new interior is nothing to sneeze at either.) The new sports book and poker room should be open by now. Station also added that sine qua non of a Las Vegas resort, a pool deck complete with private cabanas.
As for ground-up projects, Station continues to hesitate. Long-deferred (as in, two decades) Durango Station, at the southwest corner of the Beltway, is in the “off” position of its on/off status. It would be considerably more capital-intensive than redoing the Palms or Palace Station and Station is being strategically frugal with its capital these days.
It also presumably wants to see how it lures out-of-town players to the Palms before attempting other near-Strip projects. At least it shrugged off the challenge to Palace Station from the defunct Lucky Dragon without breaking a sweat.
Wild Wild West is overdue for replacement. A couple of shoves with a backhoe would probably topple it. However, with the Vegas gaming economy flat despite record visitation numbers, Station would presumably like to see some better numbers before embarking on a project that’s fit to compete with the Strip, even with the new Raiders' stadium in the equation.
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vegasdawn
Sep-22-2018
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