{"id":16187,"date":"2015-06-08T10:31:29","date_gmt":"2015-06-08T18:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=16187"},"modified":"2015-06-08T10:31:56","modified_gmt":"2015-06-08T18:31:56","slug":"16187","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/16187\/","title":{"rendered":"Hard Rock, Resorts World put their chips on the table"},"content":{"rendered":"

While New Jersey<\/strong> politicians bicker over the timing of a constitutional referendum for adding northerly casinos, Hard Rock International<\/strong> \"Hard<\/a>unveiled a detailed picture of its plans for its desired Meadowlands<\/strong> casino (a site favored by 73% of voters polled, although the pro-expansion margin is much tighter: 53%). In some respects, it will resemble its Las Vegas<\/strong> progenitor: giant-guitar marquee, center bar, museum-like displays of rock souvenirs. But it will augment those<\/a> with a New Jersey Music Hall of Fame<\/strong>, ranging from Sinatra to Springsteen. The project continues to gain supporters, including Speaker of the Assembly Vincent Prieto<\/strong> (D).<\/p>\n

The revenue stream from Hard Rock Meadowlands<\/strong> is projected to dwarf Atlantic City<\/strong>‘s: $400 million. Some of that will go to fatten purses at Meadowlands Racetrack<\/strong> (mogul Jeff Gural’s real priority),\u00a0in which Hard Rock holds a \"Hard<\/a>small stake, and some will go to assist in economic recovery in Atlantic City. Assuming that the $400 million projection is even realistic, it will have to be revised downward if legislators include Sussex County<\/strong> and Hudson County<\/strong> also make it into the enabling legislation.<\/p>\n

Besides, proponents of upstate casinos are attempting a tricky bit of triangulation<\/a>: betting that they can draw a half-billion dollars’ worth of customers from northern Pennsylvania<\/strong>, upstate New York<\/strong> and Resorts World New York<\/strong> without cutting off Atlantic City’s oxygen supply. “Gural has essentially sat down at the regional blackjack table to play three simultaneous hands,” reported the New York Times<\/em>, noting the racing mogul’s simultaneous pursuit of a Pennsylvania casino license and financial interest in Sands Bethlehem<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Now that he’s got this $1 billion project on his plate, Hard Rock International CEO James Allen<\/strong>\u00a0(ab0ve<\/em>) has ruled out any involvement in Atlantic City. That’ll be hard cheese for Glenn Straub<\/strong>. Meanwhile, the promise of as many as 5,000 permanent jobs will have Atlantic City’s displaced casino workforce looking northward.<\/p>\n

* Paul Steelman<\/strong> isn’t just designing Resorts World Las Vegas<\/strong>, he’s acting as owner K.T. Lim<\/strong>‘s emissary to the local press. According to \"Resorts<\/a>Lim-via-Steelman, the purpose of Resorts World LV is not to compete with Wynncore<\/strong> or Venelazzo<\/strong> but to create a bigger Las Vegas<\/strong> market (translation: more Chinese visitors). Genting Group<\/strong> has a leisurely timeline to fertilize that field, since it does not plan on opening Resorts World until 2018 — Steelman’s ornate designs are not something to be realized overnight. Also, the latter has rejiggered some of his plans<\/a> since they were first unveiled two years ago.<\/p>\n

The (unlikely) panda habitat has been put on hold, waiting for Phase II, which is of course contingent upon the success of Phase I. The Great Wall of China<\/strong> replica, however, is still on. The question remains whether Chinese punters are going to travel to Las Vegas to see a knockoff of their home country. Macao<\/strong> exploded when a drastically different type of casino product was introduced to the market. Or, to put it another way, Sheldon Adelson<\/strong> didn’t get richer by imitating Stanley Ho<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In a passing jab at CityCenter<\/strong>, Steelman says of contemporary architecture, “They do not give you the impression of a vacation spot \"City<\/a>…\u00a0These super modern buildings that had a statement were good-looking buildings, were dynamic, but they didn\u2019t feel like they were attacking the three emotions we want to design with.” Steelman’s aim is for a semi-themed property, although all the designs seen so far are heavy on the chinoiserie. Also, despite the multi-billion-dollar\u00a0price tag on Resorts World, Steelman describes its target audience as “families, young couples, middle-income visitors.” That’s going to be a tricky balancing act to accomplish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While New Jersey politicians bicker over the timing of a constitutional referendum for adding northerly casinos, Hard Rock International unveiled a detailed picture of its plans for its desired Meadowlands casino (a site favored by 73% of voters polled, although … 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":[65,23,56,14,26,120,185,149,165,67,62,101,95,12,61,32,9,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16187"}],"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=16187"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16192,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16187\/revisions\/16192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}