New name for Las Vegas Hilton confirmed

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- The Las Vegas Hilton will be known by its new name the LVH - Las Vegas Hotel and Casino beginning Jan. 3, the company confirmed Thursday.

"Easily recognizable ... simple, clean and elegant ... befitting an iconic property," Ken Ciancimino, executive vice president of administration, said in describing the hotel's new name. "Then we saw the new logo design (and) we knew we had a winner."

The hotel, which is owned by Los Angeles billionaire Thomas Barrack's Colony Capital LLC, is losing its Hilton franchise.

"A Las Vegas Icon. Same Fame, New Name," the company said on its new website, thelvh.com.

Ciancimino didn't expect the loss of the Hilton name to hurt business; instead he expected the property to continue to benefit from its location adjacent to the Las Vegas Convention Center and its history.

"We have a long successful history as a convention hotel and we fully expect that to continue," he said. "Groups who have been coming here for years and years have already told us that we will be back."

Neither Hilton Worldwide nor Colony Capital would comment o the specific reasons for terminating what will have been an eight-year business relationship at the end of the current contract.

The 2,950-room hotel on Paradise Road has been at the center of a court battle between Colony and its lender, Goldman Sachs Mortgage Co.

Goldman Sachs has been seeking to install a receiver to take over management and to potentially foreclose because the hotel defaulted on its $252 million term loan.

Goldman Sachs and Colony are due back in Clark County District Court for another hearing on Tuesday.