{"id":10632,"date":"2013-04-11T15:27:34","date_gmt":"2013-04-11T23:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=10632"},"modified":"2013-04-11T15:27:34","modified_gmt":"2013-04-11T23:27:34","slug":"tamares-the-dead-walk-among-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/tamares-the-dead-walk-among-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Tamares: The dead walk among us"},"content":{"rendered":"

Uh-oh. This is not good. Tamares Group<\/strong> is going to cease taking room bookings<\/a> at the Vegas Club<\/strong>. In an ominous phrase, it’s “evaluating its options” for the hotel-casino, whose gambling floor and other \"\"amenities are but a pallid shadow of what competing properties, even Tamares’ own Plaza<\/strong>, have to offer. It’s basically dead without knowing it. The news comes as the Las Vegas Sun<\/em> reports — or implies — that once-aggressive Siegel Group<\/strong> is having trouble over at the thoroughly remade Gold Spike<\/strong>. The latter was once a vile, indescribable dive that Siegel rescued from Tamares’ neglect. As for the Vegas Club, it’s not a good sign that Tamares is pulling in its horns still further at a time when Derek Stevens<\/strong> (of The D<\/strong> and the Golden Gate<\/strong>) and Terry Caudill<\/strong> (of Binion’s Gambling Hall & Hotel<\/strong> and the Four Queens<\/strong>) are either executing or announcing various forms of reinvestment and capital improvement. All of them, of course, are trying to keep pace with the state-of-the-art Golden Nugget<\/strong> and the renewed ‘classic cool’ of the El Cortez<\/strong>, which — having helped bring Emergency Arts<\/strong> to fruition — finds itself sitting at Hipster Central.<\/p>\n

(Ever notice how the showroom at the Plaza is virtually a corpse and no one has seen fit to say anything about it in months? If, at the Plaza, at first you don’t succeed, you throw in the towel immediately. As for Siegel’s big hotel project next door to the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino<\/strong>, that’s quietly gone into mothballs. I can’t remember the last time I saw activity on the site.)<\/p>\n

Maybe Tamares naively<\/strong> hopes that Tony Hsieh<\/strong> and Resort Gaming Group<\/strong> boss Andrew Donner<\/strong> will come to the rescue but Donner seems to have his hands full rounding up offshore money to \"\"finish the Downtown Grand<\/strong>. Besides, the duo is steadily marching eastward<\/a> — away from Glitter Gulch — with their real estate purchases. The Grand aside, gambling is not these gents’ priority. Tamares’ Downtown<\/strong> debacle is a classic case of a novice investor — retired arms mogul<\/a> Poju Zabludowicz<\/strong> — taking a blind leap into the casino business<\/a> with a succession of shallow-pocketed partners and sock puppets. And what has its $82 million purchased it? A dead casino, the Western<\/strong> (sold recently for $14 million), an asset sale (the Gold Spike<\/strong>, sold to a flipper for $16 million<\/a>), a dying casino (the Vegas Club) and a kinda-sorta remodeled flagship property — the Plaza — whose upgrade costs should push Tamares’ Vegas tab close to the $110 million mark, maybe past it.<\/p>\n

Even if we discount<\/strong> that aberrant capex investment, Tamares has to somehow liquidate the Vegas Club and Plaza for over $50 million just to save face, and his bargaining position is weak. File our friend Poju Z. among the more well-heeled suckers that Vegas has fleeced and sent packing. He may have been good at blowing stuff up, once up a time, but his Sin City salvos almost never hit their target.<\/p>\n

Hey, Derek Stevens!<\/strong> OK, so you finally let the worst-kept secret in Las Vegas<\/strong> out of the bag … your, \"\"new, big-gun showroom act<\/a> is The Scintas<\/strong>, holding down the 9 p.m. time slot and continuing to work their way down the casino food chain. (Anybody remember when they were a top-billed act at The Rio<\/strong>? No? Just me, huh? It was<\/em> several presidencies ago.) Peepshow<\/em><\/a> refugee Janien Valentine<\/strong> helps ease the workload. Guest shots by “notable names and friends” — I’m guessing Clint Holmes<\/strong> and Kelly Clinton<\/strong> — are promised. And if you stick around afterward, you can catch Hooters<\/strong> castoff, Raack N Roll<\/em><\/a> (what happens here eventually plays every other showroom in town). Not only was Stevens’ bombshell a total snooze, The D held off the announcement until yesterday — the very day of the premiere. Way to ramp up the excitement, Derek! At least, as PR fumbles go, it’s not as bad as Tilman Fertitta<\/strong> putting out a press release saying that Vic & Anthony’s<\/strong> was opening<\/a> … two weeks after it had actually opened<\/em>. Could similar, anal-retentive micromanagement be taking place at The D? For our sake and its, I certainly hope not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Uh-oh. This is not good. Tamares Group is going to cease taking room bookings at the Vegas Club. In an ominous phrase, it’s “evaluating its options” for the hotel-casino, whose gambling floor and other amenities are but a pallid shadow … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[155,18,51,14,4,149,7,140,153,22,47,161,129,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10632"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10632"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10635,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10632\/revisions\/10635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}