Reno’s pandemic woes are mounting following the news that all 471 jobs at the shuttered Harrah’s Reno Hotel and Casino will be permanently eliminated.
The news follows an announcement from the city’s Peppermill Resort Hotel that 103 of the property’s workers will no longer have jobs after August 1.
The Peppermill reopened with the rest of the Nevada gaming industry on June 4, but uncertainty continues to stalk the local market as it attempts to recover from the impacts of the pandemic, which are far from over.
“When we originally provided notice of furloughs effective March 17, 2020, we did not foresee the furloughs could last beyond six months or become permanent,” said General Manager Billy Paganetti. “Frankly, no one could have foreseen how the Covid-19 crisis played out.”
Harrah’s Reno has been a landmark of the city’s Virginia Street casino corridor since its founding by William Harrah as a bingo parlor in the 1930s. But its decline in recent years has mirrored that of Reno’s, and earlier this year, it fell victim to the competitive demands of Caesars’ $17.3 billion merger with Eldorado Resorts, the city’s dominant operator. Owner VICI Properties, Caesars’ separately owned real estate investment trust, sold it back in January for $50 million to Las Vegas-based property development company CAI Investments, which plans to convert the site into a mixed-use retail, residential and commercial complex called Reno City Center.
At the time of the sale, Caesars President Tony Rodio said the property’s employees would be given priority consideration for openings at other Caesars casinos in Nevada. But that was before the coronavirus struck and on March 17, the state’s casinos were ordered to close. The shutdown was lifted 78 days later, but Caesars announced that Harrah’s Reno would not reopen.
The job losses come at a time when the pandemic has sent the city’s room tax revenues plummeting, the latest results showing April’s take at only $3.5 million, down 89 percent from April 2019.
The tax funds the city’s chief tourism marketing arm, the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority, and also provides additional monies for the city, for the city of Sparks and for surrounding Washoe County.
“For June we are again projecting a very low (hotel) occupancy rate of 14 percent because we’re not really sure what reopening is going to be like,” said the authority’s Chief Financial Officer Robert Chisel. “We’re cautiously optimistic.”
Normally, June occupancy in Reno-Sparks runs between 70 and 80 percent.
As Chisel put it, “This is brand-new territory for everyone.”
