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The northern half of the Las Vegas Strip may be coming back to life during 2014 even as two of the Strip’s biggest players, MGM and Wynn, look like favorites to get Massachusetts resort licenses.
Developers have been shaking off the effects of the Great Recession that turned this strip of real estate into a graveyard for big dreams as financing disappeared. All that construction was a classic example of bad timing.
Sam Nazarian’s plans for re-building and opening the former Sahara as the SLS, “an all en-compassing mixed use resort” are already known. The project appears headed for an opening in late 2014 although scheduled openings, etc., are always subject to change with relatively little notice.
The other big project that could provide a catalyst for action elsewhere is across the Strip and slightly to the south of the SLS on land that was once going to be the site of Boyd Gaming’s $4.8 billion Echelon resort development.
The Genting Group acquired this property, about 80 acres, months ago. Its executives talked of plans for a massive Asian theme project. There is little obvious indication of anything happening since then, but access to capital is not one of Genting’s problems.
The company operates thousands of slots in a casino that has been built at New York’s Aqueduct racetrack. It has also acquired the old Miami Herald building on Biscayne Bay, the idea being to build there should Florida lawmakers ever get around to allowing casinos in the southern part of the state.
What should all this mean to Las Vegas?
Activity tends to produce a ripple effect and consumers show a greater willingness to spend. Casino companies have added to their Las Vegas amenities and used sophisticated marketing programs to reach travelers with an inclination to spend time in Las Vegas.
Continuing positive developments on the Genting and SLS sites might produce a rebirth of activity at Carl Icahn’s abandoned blue tower, the former Fontainebleau. People traveling to and from the SLS and whatever Genting has in mind will help create the kind of energy that does not now exist on the northern part of the Strip.
The Fontainebleau tower was about 70 percent complete when its developers, led by former Mandalay Resorts executive Glenn Schaeffer, hit some severe financial turbulence in 2008 and were forced to halt construction. The project went into bankruptcy and Icahn bought it for $150 million at a bankruptcy court sale in 2010.
Icahn may have figured he would quickly sell it to Penn National, which had been the only other bidder in the auction. The Penn officials knew they were looking at the need to spend another billion or so and balked at paying whatever Icahn was asking.
Icahn has no interest in looking at the Fontainebleau as anything other than a real estate deal and so he sold off all the furnishings and carpeting at bargain rates to other hotels such as the Plaza.
The prevailing economic climate at that time for projects or concepts such as a Las Vegas resort could be politely described as terrible – months before Boyd Gaming had called off its Echelon project. Plans for a Las Vegas version of Manhattan’s famed Plaza Hotel on the former site of the Frontier had also been put back on the shelf.
The Israeli owners of the Frontier land have been looking for a joint venture partner since then without a lot of success. Other north Strip corridor properties such as the Riviera and former Las Vegas Hilton, a block east of the Riviera, have also struggled.
Their big need: developers with access to capital and compelling visions about what Las Vegas might once again become.
Ironically, the gaming industry’s successes elsewhere and new Internet-related marketing capabilities have reminded some companies of the importance of a Las Vegas presence.
Macau is growing and it’s big and noisy, as are other areas of Asia. People from other parts of the world have a lot of money to spend on fun and games.
The nice thing about Las Vegas as far as a lot of deep-pocketed Asians and other globe-trotting tourists are concerned is that it is not Macau.
It’s another place to enjoy a world-class experience.

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MGM Resorts International, which hopes to build an $800 million gambling and entertainment complex in Springfield, became the first company in Massachusetts to file a final resort casino application with state regulators.
Two copies of the application, more than 7,000 pages in length, were submitted to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, the company said, one day ahead of the panel’s deadline.
MGM is the only applicant seeking the sole western Massachusetts resort casino license.
“For nearly two years, we have worked very hard to prove our project worthy of this opportunity,” said Michael Mathis, MGM’s vice president of global gaming development, in a statement. “We believe we are submitting a thoughtful and comprehensive application that will exceed the MGC’s expectations.”
The company filed its initial application in January and later cleared the two major hurdles set by the commission. In July, the casino project won a favorable vote of Springfield residents in a referendum, and earlier this month MGM was issued a favorable suitability ruling after a background check by the commission’s investigative arm.
Two companies, Mohegan Sun and Wynn Resorts, were expected to formally apply before Tuesday’s deadline for the only eastern Massachusetts license.
Mohegan Sun has proposed a $1 billion resort casino in Revere, subject to a vote by residents of the city Feb. 25.
Wynn has proposed a $1.2 billion casino along the Mystic River in Everett. Voters in that city approved of the plan in June.
The commission plans to conduct a rigorous review of casino applications, including public hearings, before issuing its licensing decisions, most likely in late May or June.
In another casino-related development Monday, the leaders of the Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah said it wanted a dispute over its gambling rights settled in the federal courts, not the state courts.
The Martha’s Vineyard-based Aquinnah announced last month it had received the necessary approval from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs to open a small tribal casino on the island. But the state of Massachusetts contends that the tribe gave up its gambling rights in a 1980s settlement that secured tribal lands on the island.
Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration filed a lawsuit with the state Supreme Judicial Court this month seeking to block the tribe from moving ahead with its plans to convert a small community center into a gambling facility.
The Aquinnah disputes that it expressly gave up its gambling rights in the land settlement and on Monday, the tribe announced it had filed paperwork asking that the legal case be moved from state to federal court.
“Our tribe has consistently maintained that we enjoy rights to game under federal law,” said Aquinnah chairman-elect Tobias Vanderhoop, in a statement. “Federal court is the appropriate venue for this case to be heard and the Tribe will vigorously defend our rights.”

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The owners of Margaritaville Casino in Biloxi will build a new hotel next spring with an eye toward a 2015 opening.
Doug Shipley, Margaritaville’s president/CEO, said in a news release that the hotel will feature 250 rooms including 170 deluxe guest rooms and 80 two- and three-bedroom suites. He says the casino will offer some time-share units.
In addition to the hotel, Shipley said Margaritaville will expand and renovate the casino floor, adding meeting space and a resort-style pool and spa. He said the casino will open a new steakhouse.
Shipley said Margaritaville Biloxi will make improvements at its marina to provide more secured overnight docking accommodations, as well as developing a bay-front resort pool and pool bar with outdoor gambling.

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The tiny Chinese city of Macau has again smashed its annual record for casino earnings as revenues last year hit a staggering $45 billion, further underlining its position as the world’s biggest gambling market.
Macau’s nearly three dozen casinos raked in 33.5 billion patacas ($4.2 billion) in December, according to data released Thursday by the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, the gambling regulator. That brought revenue for 2013 to 360.8 billion patacas ($45 billion), up 18.6 percent from 2012.
Analyst Grant Govertsen of Union Gaming Research estimated that Macau’s take would be more than seven times the amount earned on the Las Vegas Strip.
The former Portuguese colony’s once-lethargic casino market has thrived since the government ended a gambling monopoly a decade ago and let in foreign players such as Las Vegas Sands Corp. and Wynn Resorts Ltd.
The ensuing competition has transformed the tiny enclave into a gambling powerhouse, with glitzy new casino resorts centered on the Cotai Strip, marketed as Asia’s version of the Las Vegas Strip.
All six casino operators in Macau, an hour by high-speed ferry from Hong Kong, are pouring billions of dollars into new megaprojects in the district in a fresh round of expansion.
Macau’s casino revenues are the envy of other markets around Asia, which have been looking at ways to duplicate the southern Chinese city’s success.
Increasing numbers of wealthy high-rolling visitors from mainland China have helped power Macau’s rise as a casino hub.
Revenue has already overtaken the entire market in the U.S., where a year ago some 12,000 U.S. casinos raked in $37.3 billion, according to figures from the American Gaming Association. In the same period, Macau, which has 35 casinos and a population of about 560,000, earned $38 billion, according to the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.

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Mohegan Sun has reached agreements with two labor groups to hire union carpenters and tradesmen should it win approval to build a casino in Revere, Massachusetts.
The company also said Sunday it had signed a memorandum of understanding with several other Boston unions to allow for unionization of the casino’s permanent workforce.
Mohegan Sun is vying for the state’s only gambling license in the Boston area. Company executives have proposed a $1.3 billion resort on about 42 acres of land owned by Suffolk Downs horse track in Revere.
Mohegan Sun officials tell The Boston Globe the union agreements show they are committed to developing a healthy workforce if they secure both the state gambling license and voters’ approval.

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An Alabama woman got double lucky at a Mississippi casino, hitting $90,000 jackpots two days in a row.
Charlotte Moncrief of Anniston says the first came on her first pull on a $100 machine on New Year’s Day.
She returned the next day to the Silver Star Hotel and Casino in Philadelphia, Miss. - nearly a 4-hour drive from Anniston - and won again.
The Silver Star is one of two casinos at Pearl River Resort, owned by The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. A press release called it the luckiest New Year ever.

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