Station ixnays expansions

Stick a fork in Castaways Station — the forlorn patch of Fremont Street land is on the block … albeit at a considerable markup. Station Casinos, according to The Associated Press, is asking for $39.5 million on a vacant 30-acre lot for which it paid $33.7 million in late 2004. Good luck finding any takers.

Castaways Station, we never knew ye.

The ’04 transaction illustrates Station’s profilgate tendencies. Not only did it pay a markup of $900,000 on the Castaways’ market value, Station graced the owners of the Longhorn and Bighorn casinos with $12 million more in walking-away money.  After that, Station imploded the rickety old casino, commissioned a rendering of a new, $90 million replacement from local architect Ed Vance and made cryptic noises about redeveloping the site at some unspecified future date. When I asked Las Vegas City Councilman Gary Reese (in whose district the ex-Castaways sits) about the status of “Castaways Station,” the company became incredibly umbrageous and all “How dare you?”

In addition to the Castaways site, which Station appears to have grabbed mainly to keep it away from anybody else, two four additional plots are on the market. These are include an eight-acre chunk near Boulder Station and nearly five acres next to Sunset Station. This removes any doubt as to why Station keeps dickering for extensions with its bondholders: It’s trying to raise cash ASAP so it can outbid the $950 million hostile-takeover offer that Boyd Gaming‘s got on the table.

(Click here for previews of Station’s big land auction, including sites at the Ann Road/Sloan Land and Sunset & Lindell roads intersections. If the Castaways parcel also includes parking lots that previous owners leased from Jackie Gaughan, that may well rationalize the price increase.)

On the subject of high-speed rail, if you’re a skeptic or simply doubt that it’s a panacea for choked highways to and from Las Vegas, you’ll find some comfort here. Though the writer makes some thought-provoking, however, seems of the opinion that we should do nothing, so I invite him to spend a Sunday in bumper-to-bumper I-15 traffic, heading back into California one inch at a time.

One reader suggests a solution in the form of a drastic increase in high-end buses serving the SoCal-LV corridor. Assuming that’s feasible, would you make use of it? (It could do wonders for the rental-car business at either end of the trip.)