The new owner of the SLS Las Vegas has promised to invest $100 million to turn the struggling casino hotel’s fortunes around.
Alex Meruelo, whose 2017 purchase of the North Strip resort was approved on March 22 by the Nevada Gaming Commission, will use the money over the next couple of years to upgrade hotel rooms, redesign the pool, brighten the casino floor and refresh the slot machine offering improvements he said “will make a dramatic impact”.
Other changes include a new management team and possibly a name change.
“We will be using the SLS name for another year and will evaluate our options with the brand moving forward,” a spokesman for Meruelo’s Reno-based Meruelo Group said.
Meruelo Group, which owns Reno’s Grand Sierra Resort and several English- and Spanish-language TV and radio stations in California, also plans to use its media assets to promote the SLS.
The resort, a joint venture between Los Angeles nightlife entrepreneur Sam Nazarian and San Francisco-based real estate investors Stockbridge Capital Partners, opened to acclaim three years ago at the site of the old Sahara Hotel Casino. The partners spent $400 million to buy the Sahara and another $415 million to turn it into a resort whose cachet was as a trendy hangout for younger gamblers and party-goers. It was touted as the herald of a long-awaited revitalization of the largely deserted North Strip. Instead, it has steadily lost money, in no small part due to its remote location.
Nazarian’s sbe Entertainment, which owns the SLS brand, eventually exited, selling its minority stake to Stockbridge, which sold out to Meruelo last May for an undisclosed sum.
The purchase was slated to close last October but was blocked by a lawsuit filed by Chinese investors, who were owed $400 million. L.A.-based lender Mesa West was owed another $185 million. Meruelo is reported to be taking on the balance of the latter debt, which is senior to the other loans, and has agreed to pay the other lenders an amount equal to the equity value of the resort in five years.
