Today is being spent at home, buried ‘neath page proofs for Eating Las Vegas 3.0 (with assistance from sibling kitties Leona and Rascal, the latter incredibly well-named). Tonight brings Tournament of Kings — which I’ve never seen — and Evil Dead The Musical, which I have, but not in its V Theater incarnation. Last night was spent at a photo shoot, the fruits of which include:
So if you’re in Vegas somewhere during Sept. 7-26, check this shit out.
I see that private-equity ownership continues to cut a swath of destruction through the Palms. The latest vestige of the George Maloof era to be felled by One Group and the Palms’ hand-me-down president is Little Buddha. Sometime early next month it will be given the chop in favor of something called Xishi. Pretty soon people will be talking about the “good old days” at the Palms the way we remember the Stardust or New Frontier, or Treasure Island prior to Phil Ruffin‘s hideous makeover of the pirate palace.
Rumor du jour. Word has it that Carl Icahn was offered $13.75 million for what’s left of rotting, naked-t0-the-elements Fontainebleau, but said ‘non.’ OK, bargain shoppers. We know what the starting point for bidding Uncle Carl’s Carpet Barn is, but what’s the magic number that will convince him to say, ‘oui’? $15 million/acre, I’m guessing. That’s how much the old Stardust site was worth back in ’07.
In fairness to Phil Ruffin, the makeover/pillaging of Treasure Island started years before he bought the property. It was MGM/Mirage that replaced the classic skull sign out front with the bland ‘TI’ name and video board. They also sacked the tightly-scripted, 8-minute pirates vs. British naval battle in favor of the 18-minute ‘Sirens of TI” musical snoozefest. This was all in keeping with MGM’s de-theming of other Vegas properties like MGM Grand and Luxor. In that context, Ruffin hanging his old Gilley’s franchise from the New Frontier on the front of TI seems more of a stylistic misdemeanor than a felony. Personally I’m more offended by the $18-25 nightly resort fees at these properties.
Carl Icahn bought the Fontainebleau out of bankruptcy for around $150 million dollars back in 2010 and it sits empty today on around 25 acres of land. So if he sold the Fontainebleau for $6 million dollars an acre he would break even. I would think that if Mr. Icahn could sell Fontainebleau for $200 million dollars ($8 million dollars per acre) he would sell it immediately.
It looks like I misread the price that Carl Icahn turned down for Fontainebleau. 25 acres at $13.75 per acre would be a total cost of close to $345 million dollars which would result in a profit of close to $200 million dollars. I am very surprised that Mr. Icahn turned that offer down but he is a billionaire so he probably knows what he is doing.