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Remodeling Costs Skyrocket

LAS VEGAS--The Kentucky-based owners of the Westin Casuarina have spent $15 million more than they planned to remodel the former Maxim property, they said Wednesday after the Gaming Control Board voted 3-0 to recommend licensing the new property.

"It's been a challenge," Columbia Sussex President William Yung III told the control board. "We're dealing with some pretty shoddy construction (on the original Maxim), but we should get it done by September."

Columbia Sussex hopes to open the the new Westin-branded property Sept. 1, Yung said.

After the license recommendation, Yung said the company originally budgeted $50 million to transform the Maxim; $38 million to buy the bankrupt property and $12 million to remodel it.

Remodeling costs skyrocketed to $27 million after Yung's company discovered a number of poor elements in the Maxim structure, he said.

The company and its bosses are already licensed in Nevada because it owns and operates the Horizon hotel-casino in South Lake Tahoe.

The Yung family owns two small Mississippi casinos and has deals to buy the River Palms in Laughlin and Harrah's Vicksburg in Mississippi.

The Maxim opened in 1979, closed its doors in November 1999, reopened without a casino in December 1999, and closed again in August 2001.

"We bought the property as more of a hotel play than a casino play," Yung said, although he admitted that the family owned business would be interested in additional casino opportunities, if the price is right.

The Westin Casuarina will have 825 rooms but only 325 slots. Yung told board members that the property's hotel will be its big revenue-driver, with the casino as an important amenity.

Columbia Sussex is one of the largest privately held hotel owners in the country, and one of Marriott Corp.'s top licensees.

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