In a third-quarter earnings call on November 2, executives of Nevada locals giant Station Casinos said they have no current plans to sell the three casinos they closed, and also shared that they will invest $750 million to develop a new resort at Durango Drive in Las Vegas.
Station’s parent company, Red Rock Resorts, reported solid third-quarter earnings, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Red Rock Chairman and CEO Frank Fertitta III credited the results to the successful shifting of business from the resorts closed to the six Station properties that remain open.
“I think what we have to look at is those three properties represented less than 10 percent of our cash flow even though they were one-third of the casinos and we have been very successful at moving a lot of the business at those closed properties to the six open properties,” Fertitta said. “That has resulted in the higher margins that we’re seeing—49 percent for Las Vegas operations this quarter.”
Nevada were compelled to close for 78 days in 2020. At the end of the shutdown, Station reopened its Red Rock Resort and Green Valley Ranch, followed by the Palace, Sunset, Boulder and Santa Fe Stations. It did not reopen Texas Station, Fiesta Rancho, Fiesta Henderson and the Palms. It later announced that it was selling the latter to the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians for $650 million. It also announced plans to move forward on the development of a casino project at South Durango Drive in the southwest Las Vegas Valley. That deal will close before the end of the year.
“We’re extremely excited about this project,” said Red Rock CFO Steve Cooley, with construction starting in the first quarter of 2022 and lasting 18 to 24 months.
The resort will occupy a 71-acre site at an intersection passed by 166,000 cars daily, according to CDC Gaming Reports. Within a five-mile radius of Durango is a population of 350,000 people with no competition in that area. The customers are “a favorable demographic profile” as well, Cooley said.
The 533,000-square-foot property will have 73,000 square feet of casino space, 2,000 slot machines and 46 table games, Cooley said. It will have more than 200 hotel rooms, 21,000 square feet of convention and meeting space, four full-service restaurants, a sportsbook and a resort pool.
