lots of news today:
Harrahs To Blow Up Everything Except Caesars, Flamingo and ParisHarrah's Entertainment CFO Jonathan Halkyard recently spoke to a Bank of America conference - possibly to allay investor fears (or secure financing) - about the coming implosion/closure/reconstruction of many of Harrah's properties. He mentioned that Vegas and Atlantic City properties will be getting major makeovers as part of a "10 year plan" of Harrah's redevelopment.
Based on the bits and pieces we've gathered this is our mock up on how the Harrah's redevelopment project may go down:
The Imperial Palace will close in March 2007 and imploded 3-5 months later to make way for Phase 1 of "Harrahs America" After the first phase of Harrahs America opens in 2010-2011, the current Harrah's Las Vegas will close (2010 +/-) and be imploded. Concurrently with the first phase of Harrah's America, a major makeover will take place at Showboat/Ballys/Harrahs/Caesars Atlantic City - with Ballys being rebranded as a Horseshoe and Harrah's Atlantic City new towers built from the ground up.
http://investor.harrahs.com/phoenix....ventID=1390636 (some specs and drawings- i didnt see anything for vegas proposals here)
Back in Vegas, The Flamingo will continue its makeover, with an expansion to the East surrounding Barbary Coast into the soon to be vacated apartment complexes as well as the old Bourbon Street Site. Across Flamingo Road at Ballys, a team has been assembled to work on the "Ballys Project" - Ballys will be demolished and rebuilt as a Horseshoe in a multi-pronged attack. This will begin after a majority of the Flamingo renovations will be complete - existing Ballys customers will be filtered to the new Flamingo and higher end clientele to Paris and Caesars. How will this multi-pronged attach be done? Easy - Ballys strip frontage (the stream/circular walkway and Strip facing tower) will be redeveloped into a full casino + hotel tower, the remaining Ballys/MGM Grand towers will be taken down and replaced after construction is 70-80% complete in 2012(+/-). The mini-Horseshoe will attach with Paris' current casino structure on 2nd level over the driveway (a la Reno). (im guessing the rio stays put)
2007 - IP goes down
2008 - Harrahs America (IP) construction
2009 - Bally's #1 Goes Down
2010 - Mini-Horseshoe construction
2011 - Harrah's goes down, Harrah's America (IP) opens 2012 - Harrahs America (H) construction, Mini-Horseshoe Opens (late '11, early '12)? Ballys #2 goes down first
2013 - Harrahs America (H) construction, Horseshoe construction
2014 - Harrahs America opens
2015 -
2016 - Wayne Newton drowns in a vat of his own liposuction.
"In the near term -- the next 18 months to two years -- there will be some contraction as we see some supply, including ours, come out of the market," Halkyard said.
He noted that redevelopment of the 2,600-room Imperial Palace, which Las Vegas-based Harrah's acquired last year, would present the least disruption to the company's Strip portfolio of 18,000 hotel rooms.
"We will be very careful of taking out a lot of capacity at once. It is really a 10-year plan," the CFO said.
The company has said it plans to announce within the next several months plans for redevelopment of its Las Vegas and Atlantic City, New Jersey properties.
And The Next Item Up For Bid: The Sahara Hotel and Casino
Norm Clarke in today's Review-Journal is reporting that a deal is in the works for the Bennett family to sell the Sahara Hotel and Casino. He goes on to say that the deal will be worth around $1B dollars. The question isn't "will" or "when" the Sahara will be sold - that's a given - but "who." There are many plausible suspects for a Sahara bid, and from the information we've gathered (and a little of our own secret sauce added) here's a run down of who the possible suitors may be, in order of probability.
Pinnacle Entertainment
Pinnacle wants into Vegas really really bad. After losing their takeover bid of Aztar (owners of The Tropicana Vegas and Atlantic City properties) Pinnacle snapped up the aging Sands AC for a puny $250 Million dollars - $75M of which came from Aztar as a result of their deal breaker agreement. Pinnacle's top brass toured the Sahara in the final days of the Aztar deal, probably after they decided to tap out. If the asking price for the Sahara is $1B (as reported by Norm Clarke), and the new Sands AC costs $1.5 B to build - Pinnacle will have gotten their AC and Vegas properties for just about the same price as they would've paid for the Tropicana, and one resort would be brand spanking new. This makes perfect sense, and is our guess on how we think the chips are gonna fall. Our odds: 3-1
Ameristar
Ameristar Casinos are a riverboat operator with 7 properties scattered about the Middle of America. Riverboat operators are all looking for a foothold in Vegas and AC. These properties are used as carrot incentives to get players to play, and lose more. Ameristar was in the Aztar fray for a while as well, but petered out when the bidding tipped over the $1B mark. It should also be noted that the person who was heading up Harrah's currently unannounced development plan, jumped the Harrah's ship to head up the Ameristar growth division in August - part of the reason why Harrah's announcement has been delayed (source: Q&A with Harrah's CFO Johathan Halkyard). Will Ameristar bite? Possibly. Our odds: 4-1
Colony Capital
Colony Capital - owners of the Las Vegas Hilton, recently snapped up numerous properties that fellout of the Harrah's/Caesars merger - Hilton Atlantic City, Harrah's East Chicago, Harrah's Tunica and Bally's Tunica. Colony Capital also threw their hat into the Aztar bidding war for a short period of time, but quickly jumped out. Colony Capital has a history of purchasing under performing gaming properties and transforming them to turn neat properties - the Las Vegas Hilton being a perfect example of this. Will Colony Capital be willing to shell out $1B for the Sahara is a big question - they want a Strip facing property and the North end of the Strip is the viable real estate left. Our odds: 6-1
Riviera Acquisitions Inc.
This group of investors was rejected for their lowball bid for the Riviera a few weeks ago, so it makes some kind of sense that they might want to take another stab at a Strip property before they dissolve their company. If they lowballed the Riv, they probably don't have the loot to make a play for the much better and slightly larger parcel of land (if you count "The Drive" out back). Long shot. Our odds: 22-1
Poster Financial - (Tim and Tom formerly of the Golden Nugget)
Tim and Tom made a sweet profit from their purchase and subsequent sale of the Golden Nugget a few years ago. These two knuckleheads love the gambling game and, with some partners, could probably scrape up the cabbage to take over the Sahara. Sahara was bandied about as a possible target of their takeover right after they sold the Nug. The Sahara has some serious swinging vibes and with a little bit of care and attention could be made over to accentuate a party atmosphere. Will this happen? Very, very doubtful - but at least worth a mention. Our odds: 40-1
Ski Themed Water Park Casino Movieplex Hotel Spa Mish-Mash Announced for South Strip
From today's "You've Got To Be Kidding Me" file comes the announcement of "Las Vegas Wet" (no, we're not joking). A brand new Water Park, Indoor Ski Bowl, Casino disaster spearheaded by a slew of knuckleheads who used to work at Universal Studios and Walt Disney. This is what these buffoons have in store for you:
State-of-the-art water park with themed “lands”
Dining, Retail, and Entertainment district
Sprawling Family Entertainment Complex
Two upscale 600 room Hotels
Dazzling tropical themed Casino
State-of-the-Art indoor ski area
Exclusive European style spa and beach club
Multiplex Cinema with high-end reserved seating component
Contemporary 5000 Seat Arena for concerts and sporting events
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