After years of sitting on large pieces of land, Station Casinos is now in development mode.
The local-minded casino giant plans to lay the foundation stone for a $ 750 million resort near Ikea in southwest Las Vegas Valley early next year. It also owns several vacant lots in southern Nevada.
While the station hasn’t reopened all of its properties following the casino’s nationwide shutdown last year, management announced this week that it will double its presence in the valley.
“As you can see, we are in development mode right now,” Lorenzo Fertitta, vice chairman of Red Rock Resorts, a parent company of Station, told analysts during a conference call Tuesday.
The company owns six vacant lots in the valley and likes the idea of ”substantially doubling the size of our current operating platform here in Las Vegas by developing these lots,” he said.
His brother, Red Rock Resorts Chairman and CEO Frank Fertitta III, echoed these comments.
“We’ll keep looking at each of the development sites here in Vegas as we go on, trying to expand the portfolio, double the footprint here in Las Vegas,” he told analysts.
Unlike other casino operators in the valley, Station owns large plots of land that are scattered across the region and are essentially stored for future resort projects. There’s no telling what will happen with each spread – just before the pandemic broke out, Station spoke about selling some packages – but the company has no shortage of building sites.
As described in a security filing, it comprises 96 acres on Tropicana Avenue and Interstate 15 west of the Strip, 71 acres on Durango Drive and the 215-acre Beltway in the Southwest Valley, and 58 acres on Flamingo Road and Town Center Drive in Summerlin .
It also owns 45 acres in Henderson’s Inspirada parish, 40 acres in Skye Canyon in the Upper Northwest Valley, and 5 acres on Fremont Street south of Charleston Boulevard.
All are marked in the application as “Land held for development”.
The station also owns 57 acres on Las Vegas Boulevard and Cactus Avenue several miles south of the Strip, but this property is held for sale.
Executives have not yet announced which site will be developed after the one on Durango Drive. This project is slated to be built in two phases, with a total of 452 rooms in two hotel towers, restaurants, entertainment and approximately 93,000 square feet of casino space, according to Clark County documents.
It would be on 50 acres, and Station is selling the remaining space on the property for more than $ 20 million, the company said this week.
Frank Fertitta indicated that Station would follow a similar strategy with their other packages.
“We’re basically going to take the heart of each of the properties and sell the remaining properties around those development locations,” he told analysts.
With home construction, housing development, and warehouse construction in southern Nevada these days, it may not be difficult to find interested buyers.
“The trends seem to be in our favor as … large landowners in this valley,” said Lorenzo Fertitta.
However, given the station’s history of land ownership, don’t be surprised to wait a while to see what happens.
The company acquired the Durango property – a huge layer of dirt in front of the Beltway – about 20 years ago.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342. Follow @eli_segall on Twitter.
