The northern end of the Las Vegas Strip is no longer just Circus Circus and a stretch of vacant land, abandoned casino projects and scattered low-grade retail leading to the slums in the southern part of the incorporated city of Las Vegas.
The most obvious and striking example of its nascent redevelopment is the opening of Resorts World, which, at $4.3 billion, is the most expensive single casino ever built in Las Vegas.
The development has included the continual renovation and upgrading of the Sahara, the expansion of the Las Vegas Convention Center and, most recently, announcement that the old Fontainebleau-Drew project actually will be built putting another upscale mega resort in the area to join Resorts World.
Yet the event that might have the biggest impact on the value of a publicly traded casino company is the announcement that the small, down-market Aztec Casino and eight surrounding acres are for sale at $60 million, and that some international investors are actually interested in it.
The Aztec and its dilapidated hotel sit right across narrow Bob Stupak Avenue from the Strat, the flagship casino resort of Golden Entertainment.
The property, known as the Stratosphere before Golden completed a $110 million renovation in 2019, has a long history of disappointing its owners who thought the 1,149-foot-high tower would be a visitor magnet and a gold mine.
They were right about being a magnet. The tower draws two million visitors a year. But they were wrong about being a gold mine. Year after year of low-budget management advertising cheap rooms rather than the unique tower, led to scruffy, low-paying hotel patrons and visitors who jumped on the elevators for the tower view and then left without spending an extra dime.
As important as poor management was the surrounding neighborhood–slummy old apartments that rented by the week and populated by too many less than desirable persons. The neighborhood simply looked and felt unsafe.
Thus, when Golden bought the Stratosphere, there was considerable skepticism that it could do better than its previous owners.
But Golden CEO Blake Sartini did more than share the vision that the Stratosphere’s developers saw for it when it opened in 1996. He executed on a plan to make the property one in which good-paying customers would want to stay and in which some portion of those two million tower visitors would stay awhile and spend money. Thus the $110 million renovation. And he made the unique tower and its high-in-the-sky restaurant, thrill rides and other amenities the theme of more aggressive advertising.
The improvement in the look of the property and its patrons and of its financial performance has started even despite the challenges presented by the COVID pandemic.
Importantly, the neighborhood has begun to change, too. A low-budget hotel across the Strip has been converted into a mid-income apartment complex. There has been addition through the subtraction as outmoded buildings have been demolished. The city of Las Vegas has installed festive welcoming signage at what is the city line right at the Strat.
Golden owns 17 undeveloped acres surrounding the Strat and has been brainstorming ways to affordably develop attractions on it.
Now, if the Aztec and the surrounding eight acres are redeveloped, and if the recently demolished buildings are likewise, the area can go from negative to positive and help the Strat finally fulfill the vision seen a quarter of a century ago.
For a relatively small company like Golden Entertainment that will be significant.
