SEARCH NEWS:

 

Station, Greenspuns to Invest in Maloof Family's New Casino Resort

Just days after selling his family's Fiesta hotel-casino to Station Casinos Inc., Fiesta President George Maloof said he has struck a deal to bring Station into the family's long-awaited resort project near the Las Vegas Strip on Flamingo Road.

On Thursday Maloof said Station and the Greenspun Corp. have agreed to each purchase a 6 percent stake in the hotel-casino, which is as yet unnamed. Construction of the first phase of the $255 million resort started Monday and is targeted for completion in late 2001.

Once complete, Maloof said, the resort will be starkly different from the Fiesta. The family envisions a 2,000-room resort at the 30-acre site near the Rio hotel-casino, with a tower soaring 40 stories from Flamingo Road. By comparison, the multicolored main Rio tower is 41 stories.

The hotel will open with 470 rooms, but will eventually have 2,000 rooms and two towers, Maloof said. Unlike most gaming projects, Maloof plans to build the project with virtually no debt financing.

Though Station will now join the project, both Maloof and Station emphasized the Maloof family will remain in charge.

The deal came together while the Maloofs were in talks with Station to sell their popular North Las Vegas casino to Station for $185 million.

Maloof said it wasn't necessary to secure additional financing for the project, which had already been arranged. But Maloof said the family wanted to bring the Greenspun family into the deal. The Greenspuns own the Las Vegas Sun.

For Station and the Greenspuns, the Flamingo project will be their third gaming partnership. The two are partners in Barley's, a Green Valley neighborhood casino, and have previously announced plans to jointly build an upscale, $260 million hotel-casino in nearby Green Valley Ranch.

For all three partners, the project will bring a new focus -- the tourist market of the Strip, as opposed to the locals focus of Station and the Fiesta. But a purely local project wouldn't work so close to the Strip, Maloof said.

The Maloof casino will be part of a new wave of expansion on and around the Strip that will likely include Steve Wynn's resort at the Desert Inn site and MGM MIRAGE's development of the Boardwalk site.

< Gaming News