To wit, the Wild Wild West is soon to be rebaptized as Days Inn – Las Vegas at Wild Wild West Gambling Hall. (Uff da!) Which kicks the prospect of “Viva” years further down the road. I mean, you know the Fertitta boys haven’t relinquished that pipe dream, although anybody who’d build a $10 billion megaresort on the west side of I-15 needs to have a quiet lie-down until the fit passes.
This would also put paid to any speculation — mine included — that Colony Capital‘s alleged plans to move Neverland Ranch to a near-Strip site made it a likely candidate to replace Wild Wild West. (Not that they couldn’t plunk it on the former site of Scandia Fun Center and some of that other Station Casinos/Fisher Bros.-owned real estate along Rancho. Just think of all the tourists who could see it from the 15.)
The Days takeover is slated for Dec. 15 and they’re touting $40/night rooms. In this economy, they’ll need to do better than that, methinks.
Gosh, where’s the problem? A total novice of a casino developer, Canadian-owned Baltimore City Entertainment Group wants a deadline extension from Maryland regulators, “even though they have yet to pay $19.5 million in required licensing fees or reveal their mystery investor.” That’s weak. A 3,750-slot casino is a massive endeavor and BCEG is pinning everything on Mystery Man and his tardy downpayment. If BCEG doesn’t have the scratch to pay its own licensing fee, it ought to be shown the door. The Baltimore market deserves a serious casino developer, not an amateurish submission like this. It sounds as though, for the time being, Baltimore would be better off with no casino project than with BCEG’s Chinese fire drill.
I don’t really follow Atlantic City and I haven’t been there since before Bill met Monica but given the obsessive concern over recession battered Las Vegas I gotta say that Sin City West looks to be in a better position than AC. If places like Baltimore end up — in the long term — with solid, first rate casinos is there really any reason for being in Atlantic City beyond what has always been a very nice beach for a few months every year? Las Vegas, despite all the competition, is still an iconic fantasyland and when the next generation of resorts opens up after, say, 2020 I think AC will be squeezed on both sides.
I know I have said this before here but they should have put Red Rock Resort at this location. One of the Fertitta brothers maybe should have taken a geography class at UNLV to learn something about geography.
The Fertittas also own the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) which is extremely popular and extremely profitable. Maybe they could have one of these “cage matches” here outside in the huge parking lot. They have over 100 acres of land here so they could fit thousands and thousands of people into temporary stands. Obviously you could only do this in warmer months (April through October) and at night but it might be something they want to consider.