{"id":12675,"date":"2014-02-06T11:44:19","date_gmt":"2014-02-06T19:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=12675"},"modified":"2014-02-06T15:21:07","modified_gmt":"2014-02-06T23:21:07","slug":"through-a-looking-glass-brightly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/through-a-looking-glass-brightly\/","title":{"rendered":"Through a looking glass, brightly"},"content":{"rendered":"

So much for my crystal ball. Two projects that I openly doubted are now close to fruition and a third is showing fitful signs of life. (Another, Howard Bulloch<\/strong>‘s Ferris wheel, appears to be being \"SLS<\/a>dismantled.) Yesterday, SLS Las Vegas<\/strong> announced Labor Day Weekend as its opening date. The cost of the project is holding steady at $415 million, leading me to speculate that the most rearward of the hotels won’t on line at opening. That’s OK. There will plenty else to see and do<\/a>. Sam Nazarian<\/strong>‘s SBE Entertainment<\/strong> will run all the amenities, enabling SBE to capture revenue across the food, entertainment and gambling platforms. (There’s still no sign of Nazarian having applied for a gaming license but the presence of Wynn Resorts<\/strong> veteran Rob Oseland<\/strong> hardly suggests that the casino will be outsourced, as it was in the Nazarian\/Sahara<\/strong> era.)<\/p>\n

Despite much skepticism<\/strong> and opprobrium, Nazarian is making good on a public promise<\/a> that followed the Sahara’s closing. Further down the Strip, Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> has been lighting up and testing<\/a> the Vegas High Roller<\/strong>, setting off a fair amount of attendant excitement. Depending on the price point for riding this Ferris wheel, I am now convinced that it bids fair to be one of the Strip’s most popular tourist attractions — possibly the biggest since the Bellagio<\/strong> fountains. People to whom I talk (there are a few) are very jazzed about it, particularly as part of Linq<\/strong>. I’m still skeptical about the quality some of the High Roller’s sightlines but they’re much better than we were led to believe prior to construction.<\/p>\n

Somewhat less certain<\/strong> are prospects for the X Train<\/strong>, which will now run as a charter service<\/a>, debuting in May. “We\u2019ve become part of a growing segment of the rail industry, the private rail car market<\/em>,” said COO Penny Stegeman, putting the best face on events. The X Train will piggyback onto Union Pacific<\/strong> and\u00a0Burlington Northern Santa Fe<\/strong> trains. It’ll be a fancy fleet of 20 cars, eventually, upon which you can devour ceviche, etc., sample specialty cocktails and engage in role-play murder mystery games. It’s projected to be a sporadic, six-hour excursion, one that dumps you off way, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay up there on industrial\u00a0Craig Road<\/strong>. The nearest casino, The Cannery<\/strong>, has signed on as a partner. Ditto lone wolves the Hard Rock Hotel<\/strong>, Tropicana Las Vegas<\/strong> and Golden Nugget<\/strong>. Planet Hollywood<\/strong> is the only big-shot casino to affiliate with the X Train. With $198 round-trip fares and a very expensive-sounding business model, I still am dubious of the viability of this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So much for my crystal ball. Two projects that I openly doubted are now close to fruition and a third is showing fitful signs of life. (Another, Howard Bulloch‘s Ferris wheel, appears to be being dismantled.) Yesterday, SLS Las Vegas … 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":[48,73,4,149,7,11,6,54,162,9,129,19,100],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12675"}],"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=12675"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12688,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12675\/revisions\/12688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}