- Station Casinos has purchased 126 acres at the southwest corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Cactus Avenue for $172.4 million USD.
- Stations already owns a 57 acre parcel across the street from their new purchase. They’re trying to sell the smaller piece of property.
- Stations owns a significant amount of real estate in the Las Vegas Valley, with plans to use some for future resort development.
Just a few days after announcing that three of their under-performing properties were slated for the wrecking ball, Stations Casinos has apparently purchased real estate to build something new. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that the Southern Nevada locals casino giant bought 126 acres at the southwest corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Cactus Avenue for $172.4 million.
Stations owns a significant amount of vacant real estate all over the Las Vegas Valley, some of which will be used for future projects. On a conference call for investment analysts last year, Lorenzo Fertitta–vice chairman of Stations parent company Red Rock Resorts–told the audience that his company wants to double their already significant presence in Southern Nevada. At the time, the company owned six undeveloped sites in the valley and plans–in Fertitta’s words–““essentially doubling the size of our current operating platform here in Las Vegas by developing those properties.”
His brother–Red Rock Resorts Chairman and CEO Frank Fertitta III–reiterated this point:
“We’re going to continue to look at each one of the development sites here in Vegas as we roll forward, try to build out the portfolio, double the footprint here in Las Vegas.”
One of the properties is already under development. A casino resort named ‘Durango’ (though surprisingly not ‘Durango Station’) is already under construction at Durango Drive and the 215 Beltway. They’re using 50 acres for the project and still hold 21 acres adjacent. The excess land will either be used for future expansion or more likely sold. The Durango project is a bit more ambitious than most of their other locals casinos based on what the company presented to the Clark County Commission:
It is slated to be built in two phases. Plans call for a total of 452 rooms spread among two hotel towers, restaurants, entertainment and roughly 93,000 square feet of casino space, according to county documents.
The company is very bullish on the Durango Drive area. At the aforementioned analysts conference Frank Fertitta III quipped:
“Go do demographics around every local casino site in Las Vegas, and you’ll see that Durango is an absolute no-brainer.”
Stations is also in the process of developing a Wildfire casino on 5 acres along Fremont Street just south of Charleston Boulevard downtown. Red Rock Resorts president Scott Kreeger said that the plan is to be ready to break ground on a new project just as soon as the Durango is complete.
