{"id":22156,"date":"2018-07-27T11:10:07","date_gmt":"2018-07-27T19:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=22156"},"modified":"2018-07-27T11:10:07","modified_gmt":"2018-07-27T19:10:07","slug":"san-manuel-escalates-tribal-skirmish-pullback-on-paid-parking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/san-manuel-escalates-tribal-skirmish-pullback-on-paid-parking\/","title":{"rendered":"San Manuel escalates tribal skirmish; Pullback on paid parking?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The SoCal arms race continues. Having already deployed a mind-boggling 4,800 slot machines, San Manuel Casino<\/strong> is going upscale in a big way. It will add a concert hall, spa, pool plaza and hotel, all to the tune of $550 million. It’s San Manuel’s way \"\"of taking aim at newly expanded Pechanga Resort & Casino<\/strong>, as well as Palm Springs<\/strong>-area rivals Agua Caliente Casino Resort & Spa<\/strong> and Morongo Casino Resort & Spa<\/strong>. Meanwhile, Pala Casino Resort & Spa<\/strong> is opting out of this escalating warfare, putting a $170 million, 349-room hotel on hold. This is not a battle meant for the faint of heart (or light of wallet). While Pala has revamped its existing, 500-room hotel, \u201cWe\u2019ll revisit it in full after we see how the summer goes. So far, it\u2019s been very, very busy,\u201d said Vice President of Hotel Operations Hassan Abdel-Moneim<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

San Manuel, for its part, says it is responding to customers’ number-one complaint, the lack of a place to lay their weary heads.\u00a0\u201cSan Manuel has always been a locals and regional casino and we don\u2019t have a hotel \u2026 It\u2019s something very obviously missing from our casino experience,” remarked General Manager Loren Gill<\/strong>. Building that hotel is San Manuel’s way of saying it’s ready to do battle with the big boys.\u00a0\u201cIt would be different if we were building 1,000 to 2,000 rooms.\u00a0\u00a0certainly see how Pechanga\u2019s expansion would impact Pala,\u201d Gill added.<\/p>\n

The hotel, approximately 500 rooms, will have to be shoehorned into a parcel confined by a water pipe and adjacent homes. Gill understated,\u00a0\u201cwe\u2019re trying to maximize a small footprint here.\u201d He’s picking a good time to expand. California<\/strong> tribal-casino \"\"revenues are increasing at double the pace of Indian casinos nationwide, up 7% between fiscal years 2016 and 2017. Still, Pechanga Development Corp<\/strong>.’s\u00a0Christina McMenamin<\/strong> laughed off the imminent competition:\u00a0\u201cWe are constantly improving and raising the guest experience at Pechanga to stay ahead of the market. Because of our most recent expansion, no other gaming resort in Southern California offers a luxury hotel, a magnificent pool, luxury spa, and golf all at the same property.\u201d We shall see.<\/p>\n

* Paid parking may really have become a breaking point on the Las Vegas Strip<\/strong>, where everything is hellishly expensive<\/a>. Wynn Resorts<\/strong> has blinked, announcing that if you pay $50 or \"\"more on property you will receive one day’s parking free. That’s sort of a concession. Wynn spokeswoman\u00a0Deanna Pettit-Irestone<\/strong> explained why the company wasn’t just reverting to free parking:\u00a0“The approachable spend amount is designed to ensure that parking remains plentiful for resort guests while reducing parking overflow from neighboring businesses.” For “neighboring business” read Fashion Show Mall<\/strong> and Palazzo<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*\u00a0Slowly, casino companies are feeling their way toward satellite-casino locations in Pennsylvania<\/strong>. Targeting a spot 30 miles outside of Pittsburgh<\/strong>, the duo of Cordish Co<\/strong>. and Greenwood Gaming & Entertainment<\/strong> has settled upon Westmoreland Mall<\/strong>, where\u00a0a 100,000-square-foot casino<\/a> will become part of the retail array. The casino is going into the space currently (but not \"\"for long) occupied by a Bon-Ton<\/strong> department store. At the same time, the\u00a0Springettsbury Township Board of Supervisors<\/strong> is feeling out its constituents<\/a> as to their sentiments regarding a Penn National Gaming<\/strong> casino at York Galleria<\/strong> (another Bon-Ton graveyard).<\/p>\n

If there is any lingering doubt about Penn’s sincerity, let it be noted that the company has dropped its lawsuit against Gov. Tom Wolf<\/strong> (D) over the constitutionality of the satellite casinos. Having sunk $50 million into a Springettsbury<\/strong> license, Penn no doubt feels the imperative to make good on its investment. Penn spokesman Eric Schippers<\/strong> insisted the company still felt it was in the right but wanted to spare itself “what is likely to be a lengthy and costly legal battle.\u201d\u00a0Springettsbury Township is also guilty of a flip-flop, its selectmen having voted against casinos before voting in favor of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The SoCal arms race continues. Having already deployed a mind-boggling 4,800 slot machines, San Manuel Casino is going upscale in a big way. It will add a concert hall, spa, pool plaza and hotel, all to the tune of $550 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[65,34,70,172,69,95,33,9,19,20,233],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22156"}],"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=22156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22162,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22156\/revisions\/22162"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}