What the fuQ?; A dubious honor

Word around here is that Caesars Entertainment did an in-house survey on potential re-names of Imperial Palace — soon to become “The Quad” — and promptly dumped the poll results in the nearest wastepaper basket. Se non e ver, e ben trovato … that is, if it didn’t happen, it sounds exactly like the sort of time-wasting exercise for which the Gary Q. Loveman administration has become infamous, like the never-to-be-built Paris-Las Vegas pedestrian bridge. Seriously, this is a company that owns the Showboat, Harveys and — ahem! — Horseshoe brands and the best it can do for the Las Vegas Strip is “The Quad”?

Leave aside the blunt, rectangular and thoroughly unromantic connotations of the square peg thrust into the round hole that will always be “Imperial Palace” to denizens of Vegas — just as “Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall” will forever be thought of as the Barbary Coast. And let’s skip the cultural tone-deafness of evoking the character ‘4’ in an Oriental-styled casino. What I want to know is: Did the letter ‘Q‘ have a going-out-of-business sale? What is Loveman’s fascination with that particular part of the alphabet? Does he have market research that shows a high correlation between customer spend and a proliferation of Qs? First “Linq,” now “Quad.” No doubt his delusional Toronto megaresort proposal will be dubbed “Qanada.” The casino he’s helping to build in Baltimore could be slugged “Qamden Yards.” And if and when he and Richard “Coastal Marina” Fields get done spending an incredibly superfluous $1 billion on Suffolk Downs, they can finish by renaming it “Suffolq Downes” or something comparably pretentious. If he thought he could do it and escape ridicule, Loveman would surely rename his flagship property “Qaesars Palace.” I hear that “X” is a high-value letter in Scrabble, too, Gary. And, yes, that’s “Scrabble,” not “Sqrabble.”

While there’s been a fair amount of rhyme and reason to the selection of previous Jay Sarno Award recipients, 2012’s winner will not only be unable to accept it, he’s a totally ‘WTF?’ choice to begin with: the late J. Terrence Lanni. I mean, yes, it’s sweet and lovely to do something to restore Lanni’s reputation, which was at an all-time low when he exited MGM Mirage back in 2008. (There was such a matrix of possible reasons for his departure at that time, does it matter any longer exactly why he left?) Given what he did to improve MGM’s corporate culture, maintain labor peace and the expand the company over which he presided, recognition of Lanni for humanitarianism or business leadership would seem thoroughly apt.

But … for architecture? Seriously??? “Without his involvement for more than 30 years, our industry literally would look very different,” writes American Gaming Association President Frank J. Fahrenkopf, somehow managing to keep a straight face. Would it, Frank? Really? You’re gonna have a hard sell with that line of argument. The best evidence Fahrenkopf can muster in support of his contention is the conversion of a Howard Johnson’s in Atlantic City to Caesars Boardwalk Regency and the first iteration of Forum Shops here on the Strip. And, yes, one may help “engineer the purchase of Mirage Resorts … and the even larger purchase of Mandalay Resort Group,” but that mainly demonstrates one’s deal-making skills in amassing a portfolio (and, dare I say it, a mountain of debt), not an eye for design.

In fact, during Lanni’s regime, the company was notorious for its lack of vision and architectural distinction. A regular knock on the company was that it didn’t have a vision, it just bought other peoples’ ones. Lanni inherited the Green Monster, MGM Grand, and improved its look about as much as probably was possible. But he was stumped for what to do with all that Strip acreage he bought from Steve Wynn until then-CFO Jim Murren made an end-run to Kirk Kerkorian and sold the aging mogul on what became CityCenter.

If Fahrenkopf wants to make a case for Lanni as someone who advanced the look of the industry, couldn’t he at least point to MGM Grand Detroit or MGM Grand Paradise Macau? I suppose nobody wants to raise the living ghost of Pansy Ho (right) when remembering Lanni’s career — she cast a long enough shadow over his post-MGM years — but those are two, quite distinctive towers that suggest perhaps the company had belatedly discovered style after spending so much time agglomerating Slots A Fun and eternal problem child Luxor, to say nothing of those three wonderful properties in Primm that are now the headache of Affinity Gaming, not MGM.

Speaking of Primm — and at the risk of seeming ungenerous, might I suggest that a gross injustice has been perpetrated in order to curry favor with a dues-paying AGA member? When will a Sarno Award be posthumously awarded to Homer Rissman? Although his work in Southern Nevada has largely been overshadowed by that of Martin Stern, it is to Rissman that we owe the look of Circus Circus and the Flamingo. He also lent his talents to the durable performing complex at Spring Mountain Ranch State Park that houses popular Super Summer Theatre, another Vegas institution. His influence on the present look of the Strip is at least as tangible as Lanni’s, I submit, and more historically significant. The Sarno Award just took a big hit in terms of credibility.