The struggling SLS Las Vegas is being sold to an investment group that owns the Grand Sierra casino in Reno, Nevada.
Stockbridge Capital Partners, SLS’ majority owner, did not disclose a sale price. Neither did the buyer, the Meruelo Group, a privately owned holding company with interests in dozens of companies in industries ranging from construction and engineering to hospitality and media, real estate and food services.
The Grand Sierra Resort and Casino has been Meruelo’s sole gaming asset up to now, and the firm’s Chairman and CEO Alex Meruelo characterized the SLS buy as “a once in a lifetime opportunity to acquire a premier gaming property on the world famous Las Vegas Strip.”
The deal, subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close in the third quarter, the companies said in a joint statement. A Meruelo spokesman said the company expects the process to go smoothly given that Alex Meruelo is already a Nevada licensee.
Local news reports say Meruelo will likely rebrand the 1,300-room SLS, as it did when it purchased the 1,990-room Grand Sierra in 2011, a property that had operated at various times as the MGM Grand Reno, Bally’s Reno and the Reno Hilton.
The SLS features a 50,000-square-foot casino floor with 600 slot machines and 60 table games.
One report, citing an unnamed source, said there are discussions about changing the name back to the Sahara, the legendary casino hotel that operated at the site from the earliest days of the Strip until 2011, when Stockbridge and Los Angeles nightclub mogul Sam Nazarian closed it for a $415 million makeover as the SLS.
But since opening day in August 2014 their investment has struggled to turn a profit, in large part due to its location on Sahara Avenue at the far northern edge of the Strip. That wasn’t a handicap in the Sahara’s heyday in the ’50s and early ’60s, before the opening of Caesars Palace shifted the Strip’s center of gravity several miles to the south.
The resort lost more than $80 million in its first six months, and Nazarian, who’d run into difficulties with Nevada regulators over his past business dealings and personal life, removed himself from day-to-day operations and later sold his stake to Stockbridge.
One bright spot was the arrival of Starwood Resorts Worldwide, which took over one of SLS’ three hotel towers, the Lux, and reopened its 289 rooms in 2016 as the W Las Vegas.
The SLS might have fared better had the recession not dashed billions of dollars of proposed north Strip resort investment. Several glittering projects?the Plaza Las Vegas, Crown Resorts’ Crown Las Vegas and Alon, Boyd Gaming’s Echelon, the partially built Fontainebleau?never came to fruition, and the area continues to lack attractions to be a major competitor for the Strip’s millions of visitors.
That doesn’t faze Meruelo, who said, “We look forward to bringing our experience and successful track record as a casino hotel owner, and to leverage our Los Angeles-based media and entertainment properties, to position the SLS as one of the most desired destinations in Las Vegas.”
The Meruelo had an agreement in principle to purchase the Trump Plaza casino in Atlantic City several years ago but was thwarted when majority bondholder owner Carl Icahn took control of the property and refused to sell to Meruelo.
