While we’re still a few years from seeing Resorts World Las Vegas come to fruition, in the meantime, Genting Group would like to tease our interest. It’s asking Clark County for permission to build a couple of “preview centers” on the Las Vegas Strip, out in front of the remnants of Echelon. Hey, anything that stimulates foot traffic in that area is great by me. Resorts World LV’s design is sufficiently intriguing that I think we’d all like to get an advance peek at what’s going to be under that turtle shell.
Given the continued softness in the locals market, I wonder if Las Vegas Lucky Investment isn’t jumping the gun with its proposal for a 30-story, 794-room casino-hotel out near UNLV. (I have a pretty strong hunch the Federal Aviation Administration is going have to serious issues with the project, given that it lies near a McCarran International Airport glide path.) The company isn’t registered in Nevada, so I’m not sure who’s behind it. However, the Key Largo site is nearby and it’s gone begging for years, so one has to question whether LV Lucky is on the right end of the supply/demand equation.
Also certain to be dickering with the FAA is U.S. Thrill Rides, which wants to build a “polercoaster” — a combination rollercoaster/observation tower — on the Strip. (Who said family friendly Vegas was dead?) Imagine Seattle’s Space Needle with tendrils of ascending and descending rail lines wrapped around it. Plus a 360-degree video billboard. And retail. All for $100 million. More pertinently, the height is very negotiable: As little as 200 feet, as many as 1,000. U.S. Thrill Rides hopes to get permission to build to 650 feet, just a few feet shorter than Fontainebleau. As intriguing as the “how high” is the “where”: the Tropicana Las Vegas. Its footprint is pretty well crammed right now, so unless the Trop plans to cannibalize still more surface parking (or do some major demolition), I’m a bit foxed as to where they’d squeeze it in, since U.S. Thrill Rides needs two-acres — and neither party is remotely on the same page.
However, since that company built the long-gone, well-remembered Sky Screamer at MGM Grand, back in the Alex Yemenidjian era, one’s 
inclination is to give them the benefit of the doubt. Lord knows how well it will harmonize with the whitewashed Trop but it beats the heck out of the “hybrid zip line and ski lift” that has been approved for The Rio. The latter is an idiotic, tacky notion that will further mar what used to be Las Vegas‘ most beautiful casino-hotel. It has been much abused under the Gary Loveman administration, which continues to allow the property to deteriorate but (the last I heard) still thinks somebody out there will pay a half-billion dollars for it. As if!
Colorado‘s casino industry continues a multi-year decline. The latest victim is Central City‘s Doc Holliday Casino. “We have struggled with deteriorating operating results … for many years,” said Global Casinos CEO Clifford Neuman, who also blamed a “challenging” market. Indeed, if Colorado wants a major casino industry, it should put the casinos in more populous areas. Global, meanwhile, will spin off its gambling operations in order to become — get this! — a health-care REIT.
What’s in a name? In order to “pursue new development opportunities in Asia,” Las Vegas Sands has lured UBS banking exec Grant Chum into the fold as senior VP of global gaming strategy. Might one say his new job involves “Chumming the waters” in hopes of landing some big, new fish?
The Maloof family recently sold the Sacramento Kings for $534 million dollars. With their new found wealth I was wondering if they might try and buy back part of the Palms or maybe buy another casino.
That polercoaster looks cool. Maybe they should contact the company London Thrill who propsed another Ferris Wheel near the corner of Harmon and the Strip. That polercoaster probably would do pretty good at that location.