Las Vegas is moving skyward. “Manhattanization” is an apt description, a word frequently used particularly by the real estate brokerage crowd, their websites full of sleek, modernistic high-rise renderings. The “Entertainment Capital of the World” that rose from the Mohave Desert is transforming itself once again.
Residential condos account for some of the Las Vegas Valley’s high-rise boom, but a good amount comes with massive hotel-casino-entertainment projects.
As Erika Pope, senior manager, public relations, at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), points out, 41,000 more hotel rooms are under way or planned for completion by 2010.
If all are built, the metro area would see a 31 percent increase from its current collection of 133,000 rooms. Construction is already under way on projects that account for about half of the new rooms, with plenty of meeting space accompanying them.
“Vegas offers tremendous flexibility for the meeting planner, whether it’s a large association—and attendance tends to be higher when conventions are held here—or a small corporate group,” Pope says. “We have diversity. There are hundreds of ways to plan memorable events, and after the workday, there are plenty of diversions.”
That diversity already includes everything from mega convention centers and smaller venues such as the Southwest Event Center at the Hampton Inn Tropicana or the slick White House Las Vegas to myriad meeting facilities at properties such as the Mirage, MGM Grand, The Venetian, Caesars, Harrah’s, Westin Casuarina, Bellagio, Excalibur, Imperial Palace, and Tropicana.
Further diversification is guaranteed by a wave of condo-hotel high-rises, the first two of which debuted last year: Signature at MGM Grand and the Platinum Hotel and Spa, both of which are non-gaming, non-smoking properties with plenty of hip, posh amenities, in addition to meeting venues.
Anticipating the onslaught of new-generation projects, the push is also on to diversify the city’s meetings and conventions mix.
In October, the city hosted more than 81,000 delegates at 16 different medical events.
“This is an industry that has not typically located in Las Vegas in the past,” says Chris Meyer, CMP, LVCVA’s vice president of convention center sales. “We are always striving to bring new industries to our destination, and we’ve enjoyed some great success.”
Carling Dinkler, president of Custom Conventions Las Vegas, a destination management company, says Las Vegas is getting more high-end groups and business from Europe, especially from the U.K.
“They love this slice of Americana,” Dinkler says.
Two-thirds of the city’s 22,000 meetings and conventions held in 2005 were smaller corporate and other meetings. In 2005, the LVCVA established the goal of increasing meetings, conventions and business visitors from 15 percent of the total visitors to 20 percent by 2010. And last June, it launched a meeting planner advertising campaign, with an emphasis on corporate meetings and other smaller meetings.
Vegas has become a serious meetings town, Dinkler says, pointing out that the new Wynn Las Vegas devoted double the square footage to meetings as it did casino space.
Unveiled in April 2005, the 2,700-room Wynn, with 200,000 square feet of function space, is symbolic of Vegas’ success. For the third quarter of 2006, it ran an average daily rate of $271 (up from $264 for the same period in 2005) at an average occupancy of 94.9 percent (up from 93 percent).
Nice Digs
Wynn Las Vegas is also indicative of the destination’s upscale slide. In a first for the town, Wynn’s Tower Suites won the Mobil Five-Star hotel rating for 2007. Also, the Wynn and the Skylofts at MGM Grand both achieved AAA Five Diamond status for the first time, joining three others with the rating in the destination: the Bellagio; The Ritz-Carlton, Lake Las Vegas; and the Four Seasons Las Vegas.
The first major new casino resort to open in five years, the Wynn signaled the start of the current building binge.
Under construction on an adjacent site is Wynn Resorts’ $1.74 billion, 2,042-room Encore at Wynn Las Vegas, expected to open by early 2009. Nearby, and opening this fall, is Las Vegas Sands’ $1.8 billion 3,025-suite Palazzo Casino Resort, which will have 450,000 square feet of meeting space.
To the north, Boyd Gaming closed the Stardust in November, and following its implosion, slated for the first quarter of this year, work will begin on the company’s proposed $4 billion, 5,300-room Echelon Place.
Much of the construction under way is around the Harmon Avenue corridor, which crosses the Strip south of the Bellagio.
Here, the $1.8 billion Cosmopolitan Resort and Casino is scheduled to debut in 2008. With Hyatt as the operator, it will feature 2,700 hotel and condo-hotel units, and 150,000 square feet of meeting space.
Across Harmon, the nation’s largest private construction development is taking shape: MGM Mirage’s $7 billion Project CityCenter, which is slated to open in November 2009 with 4,800 hotel rooms.
Yet to break ground and complete final designs is W Las Vegas Hotel, Casino and Residences, a project of Starwood Hotels and Edge Group. It was announced as a $1.7 billion complex with 3,000 hotel and residential units and 300,000 square feet of meeting space.
Harmon Avenue presents a mind-boggling array of sites. Moving east from Project CityCenter and Cosmopolitan on the Strip, the north side has Aladdin/Planet Hollywood, then a Harrah’s parcel, then the W and Edge project, then the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.
Last year, Edge acquired the adjacent Las Ramblas site, where a resort project involving actor George Clooney had earlier been announced, and the Hard Rock and an adjacent site was acquired by Morgans Hotel Group, ending Hard Rock’s current expansion plans.
Extreme Makeovers
Vegas is also transforming through makeovers.
A year ago, the 700-room Hotel San Remo Casino morphed into the first Hooters Hotel and Casino following a renovation. Last October, the first new Playboy Club in more than 25 years opened atop the Palms Casino Resort’s new 40-story Fantasy Tower. The transformation of the Arabian-themed Aladdin Resort and Casino into Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino is set for completion this spring. In November, downtown’s Golden Nugget completed a $100 million facelift, and Caesars Palace opened the Qua Baths and Spa with 51 treatment rooms, promoting “a gathering place reminiscent of the glorious baths of ancient Rome.”
“We are much more than gaming. We’ve finally decided we’re an adult destination—the ‘family’ thing was just a moment,” Dinkler says, referring to Las Vegas’ marketing pitch during the 1990s.
In other news, the South Coast Hotel and Casino, five miles south of the Strip, became Michael Gaughan’s South Point Hotel, Casino and Spa in October. Boyd Gaming sold the property to Gaughan, who had been CEO of Coast Casinos, which merged with Boyd in 2004, and who was instrumental in the property’s development. Boyd opened the $600 million property, which has 1,350 guest rooms and a convention center, in December 2005.
South of the Strip, construction is progressing on Town Square, a 1.8 million-square-foot, open-air shopping and entertainment project that is expected to open this fall. It will include 150 stores and 200,000 square feet of office space.
Meanwhile, work was expected to begin soon on a $737 million enhancement to the Las Vegas Convention Center, slated for completed by late 2010. The project includes renovations, additional meeting and exhibit space and a new monorail station.
Additionally, the Las Vegas Monorail is scheduled to be expanded by four miles, with five new stations, including two at McCarran International Airport. Construction on the project is scheduled to begin in 2008, with completion slated for 2011.
The seven-stop, four-mile, driverless monorail, which debuted in 2004, runs above the streets along the Strip’s east side from the Sahara to MGM Grand, and includes a stop at the convention center. Last summer, it launched a bulk ticket discount program with a variety of packages for travel and meeting planners.
There’s much more to fuel Vegas-watcher appetites. There are buyouts—with Harrah’s in December agreeing to be acquired by private companies for $27.8 billion in cash and Station Casinos’ management-proposed buyout to take the company private—and site consolidation. In an October deal expected to close this quarter, Harrah’s gets Boyd Gaming’s four-acre Barbary Coast Hotel and Casino in exchange for 24 acres adjacent to Boyd’s Echelon Place project. Harrah’s said the deal essentially completes the assembling of land for its master plan; it controls 350 acres.
Sitting Pretty
For the first nine months of last year, Vegas hosted 29.3 million total visitors, a 0.9 percent increase over the same period in 2005, with convention attendance, at 5 million, up 0.4 percent. The average hotel occupancy (excluding motels) stood at 92.7 percent, representing a 1.3 percent increase, according to the LVCVA.
Fitch rating service recently predicted that Vegas would be able to absorb a higher than average hotel-room growth rate in the next few years.
The annual room supply growth, it said, had grown at only around 1 percent a year from 2000 to 2006, well below its historical 5 percent an nual average increase.
Fitch listed mitigating factors: CityCenter and Echelon could impact construction costs and labor supply, delaying some projects, and some could be canceled or downsized, while older properties could shut down to make way for new development, offsetting room growth.
And although the report expressed concern at the new supply’s concentration at the market’s high end, this could be mitigated by older properties moving down-market, it said.
Henderson/Lake Las Vegas
Southwest of the Strip, the sprawling city of Henderson boasts 3,000 hotel rooms and a number of upscale desert resorts.
“We have the best of both worlds. It’s awesome. Here you can keep groups together,” says Ed Kirby, national sales manager for the Henderson Convention Center and Visitors Bureau.
For starters, there is the 3,600-acre, master-planned resort community of Lake Las Vegas, located 17 miles from the Strip and northeast of downtown Henderson.
Totaling 1,000 hotel rooms, it features The Ritz-Carlton, Lake Las Vegas; Intrawest Corp.’s MonteLago Village Resort; and a Loews Lake Las Vegas Resort (formerly a Hyatt Regency) with 40,000 square feet of indoor function space, including a 20,500-square-foot ballroom.
Loews had originally planned to build a resort at Lake Las Vegas but purchased the 493-room Hyatt instead and has embarked on a range of improvements.
Last spring, Montelago Village opened a new property, Luna di Lusso, almost doubling its number of guest units to 300. Montelago has more than 6,000 square feet of meeting space.
West of downtown Henderson, Station Casinos’ Green Valley Ranch Resort, Spa and Casino recently unveiled a major expansion that brought the property’s total square footage of meeting space to more than 64,000, and an entertainment venue is slated to open at the resort this spring.
Henderson, which, with a population of more than 215,000 is Nevada’s second-largest city, has a downtown convention center with 10,000 square feet of column-free exhibit space. According to Kirby, the Henderson Convention Center mainly attracts local meetings and events.
Last September, the $9 million Henderson Events Plaza debuted between city hall and the convention center, providing 60,000 square feet of space of function space, much of which can be shaded with canopies.
Currently, entrances to the convention center and the new plaza are on opposite sides. According to Kirby, work is expected to begin late this year on a renovation of the convention center that will integrate it with the plaza.
Summerlin
Unfolding along Vegas’ western rim is the 22,500-acre, master-planned community of Summerlin, sitting snug against Spring Mountain and the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.
Last April, Summerlin received its second upscale resort with the opening of the Red Rock Casino, Resort and Spa, a 415-room Station Casinos property with 94,000 square feet of function space.
Summerlin is also home to the 536-room JW Marriott Las Vegas Resort and Spa, which has a casino and 22 meeting rooms totaling 66,000 square feet of function space. Last May, the resort added a meeting room with a capacity for 150 people. Suncoast Hotel and Casino is another option, with 25,000 square feet of meeting space.
Laughlin
Located where Nevada, California and Arizona meet, Laughlin attracts more than 4 million visitors a year, drawing heavily from the Phoenix and Southern California markets.
The destination, set along the Colorado River 90 miles south of Las Vegas, has more than 10,000 hotel rooms and 125,000 square feet of meeting space in nine casino resorts.
“Our room rates, banquet facilities and entertainment provide an incredible value,” says Meg McDaniel, senior manager of regional sales at the Laughlin Visitors Bureau. “Our core attraction is gaming, but people don’t realize the range of outdoor activities we have.”
Four golf courses are within 20 minutes of the destination, and the river, nearby Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu provide water activities.
Last June, the visitors bureau added a meeting planners RFP page to its website.
“We’re now getting four times as many leads than we did before,” McDaniel says, adding that the destination’s average group size is between 75 and 125 people. “We’re also undergoing a revitalization that will make for a better product and an improved visitor experience.”
In November, the 1,907-room Flamingo Laughlin, the city’s largest hotel, with 35,000 square feet of meeting space and a 3,300-seat theater, was renamed the Aquarius Casino Resort. Purchased last May by American Casino and Entertainment from Harrah’s, it underwent $40 million in public area renovations and is planning room renovations.
Harrah’s Laughlin Hotel and Casino completed renovations of its casino and rooms in two hotel towers and is finishing room renovations in its third tower.
Acquired by Landry’s Restaurants last year, Golden Nugget Laughlin has new dining options, and it is completing the renovation of its 300 guest rooms. The property is also planning a second tower with 300 guest rooms.
Now owned by Columbia Sussex, Ramada Express Hotel and Casino recently began an $11 million renovation, and the River Palms Resort and Casino opened a new 300-seat theater last April.
Meanwhile, MGM Mirage is selling its two Laughlin casino hotels—Colorado Belle and Edgewater—for $200 million in a deal expected to be concluded in the second quarter. The company acquired these properties in April 2005 as part of its acquisition of Mandalay Resort Group.
McDaniel says Preferred Outlets, which, like the destination’s nine casino hotels is situated along the nearly two-mile riverwalk, will start on a two-year expansion this year, doubling its retail square footage to 600,000 square feet.
Mesquite
Eighty miles northeast of Las Vegas is Mesquite, located on Interstate 15 close to the Arizona state line and St. George, Utah, which is just 40 miles away.
Three of the town’s four hotels—CasaBlanca Resort, Oasis Resort Casino and Virgin River Hotel Casino—are under the same ownership. Together, the three properties offer 20,000 square feet of meeting space and can handle groups of up to 500 people.
Ann Sunstrum, director of sales for the three hotels, says with six golf courses in the area, the properties receive a great deal of golf groups, but they are expanding into other group markets.
Beyond golf, Mesquite offers spas as well as activities ranging from ATV excursions and go-karting to skeet shooting, and Utah’s Zion and Bryce Canyon national parks are less than two hours away, while Nevada’s Valley of Fire State Park is 30 minutes away.
Primm
Near the California border 40 miles southwest of Las Vegas, Primm is another option in the area offering affordable accommodations, gaming and other diversions.
Together, they fall under the name Primm Valley Resorts, which was acquired by MGM Mirage in 1999. In November, the MGM Mirage agreed to sell Primm Valley Resorts to Herbst Gaming for $400 million in a deal expected to close at the end of the first quarter.
Primm Valley Resorts has a total of 2,644 guest rooms, 10 restaurants, 2,900 slot machines, 98 gaming tables, and 62,000 square feet of meeting and exhibit space, plus the Primm Valley Golf Club, with two Tom Fazio-designed courses that MGM Mirage will retain.
For meetings and events, Primm Valley Resort and Casino has a 21,000-square-foot conference center, Buffalo Bill’s offers a 6,000-seat arena, and Whiskey Pete’s features a 700-seat showroom.
Attached to Primm Valley Resort is an outlet mall with more than 100 designer stores, and Buffalo Bill’s boasts the Desperado, a high-speed roller coaster.
For More Info
Henderson Convention Center and Visitors Bureau 702.267.2171
www.visithenderson.com
Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority 702.892.0711
www.lvcva.com
Laughlin Visitors Bureau 702.298.3022
www.visitlaughlin.com
