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Suncoast Hotel Makes Game More Interesting

LAS VEGAS, Nevada – Sept. 19, 2000 --Haven't seen the new Suncoast hotel in Summerlin? Here's what it looks like:

Go to the hall closet, the one with the board games. Pull out the old Monopoly game (it's buried under Parcheesi and on top of Risk).

Pluck out a hotel, any hotel.

Spray paint it gold.

There you have it.

Brilliantly inspired architectural design aside, the Suncoast opening was akin to plunking a hotel on Boardwalk. Players tend to notice. And forget that the Regent Las Vegas beat the Suncoast to the board by more than a year; the ripple effect was similar to buying a house for the yellow Marvin Gardens properties. It's quite easy to ignore as you're scooting toward "Go," or in this case, Terrible Herbst's lube 'n' wash up the road.

The Regent did have sole possession of the Rampart Strip for quite a while, but never seized the opportunity to become something.

In its brief incarnation the hotel has been no more a benign, confused member of the neighborhood, chronically uncertain of what it wants to be (Hotbed for women's boxing? Home to fading lounge performers who peaked in the '60s? Safe haven for Irish pub crawlers? Spa Central for vacationing golfers? Anyone? Bueller?)

The Regent also still seems not to get it when dealing with customers. Over the past few weeks a friend was attempting to book a wedding reception in one of the Regent's wonderful suites.

She kept calling, getting a representative's voice mail, leaving frustrated messages. Finally she reached the employee, who told her the room had already been booked -- about a month after my friend's first phone call to the hotel. Smooth operation, gang, very smooth.

Not that the Suncoast, or any other resort, is incapable of botching wedding plans. But the operation seems much more efficient across the street. During the opening week every significant hotel feature was up and running.

The 460-seat showroom was spit-shined and ready for the waves of rabid Air Supply fanatics who invaded the hotel over the weekend. The high-tech Suncoast 16 movie complex and 64-lane bowling alley (why bowling is not an Olympic event cries for investigation, by the way) were ready for action on opening night.

Yes, the neighborhood has irrevocably changed. It seems that, suddenly, the Orleans has been beamed into our back yard. Nearby dwellers have noticed; last week the place was teeming with all sorts of Las Vegans -- from adults playing blackjack and gawking at the cocktail waitresses' cheeky getups to kids heading to the arcade outside the theaters.

I ran into an acquaintance at the buffet line (sorry about the spilled quiche) the night I stopped in. Without divulging his identity, I'll just say he's a big-shot supervisor for a rival casino chain. I asked him the old, "Whaddya think of the new digs?" question, and without much conviction he said he was "underwhelmed."

Then he paused and said, almost in a whisper, "But I think it will do extremely well."

No doubt the Suncoast plans on being a relevant and profitable part of our Summerlin landscape. As in Monopoly, the new hotel has added excitement to the game.

Just try not to land on it too much.

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