I was down at the Boardwalk closing yesterday–it’s quite a thing to see a casino shut its doors. I’m going to be involved in an oral history program that will collect interviews from former employees, so if you know someone who used to work there, have them get in touch with me. I think there are some great stories there.
If you want to read my thoughts on 2005 in Vegas, check out my column in theLas Vegas Business Press:
Looking back, 2005 will be remembered as a transitional year for Las Vegas. It saw a legend return and the groundwork laid for a transformation on the Las Vegas Strip.
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The most compelling personal story was likely “the Return of the King,” as Steve Wynn returned to the Strip with his $2.7 billion resort. The Mirage shifted the development of the Strip in 1989, emphasizing luxury at the expense of cheap food and rooms, and the Bellagio underlined the growing sophistication of the Strip, which now drew more worldly travelers who demanded excellence.Wynn Las Vegas represents another step in Strip resort evolution: it is a place with more maturity and self-assurance. Spectacle — be it a pirate battle or faux architecture — has been replaced by experience. Wynn doesn’t try to lure guests in with flash; it assumes they are already coming, and seeks to give them a personally satisfying visit. He has taken the casino resort from the growth-spurt adolescence of the 1990s into a confident adulthood.
Steve Wynn isn’t alone — THEhotel at Mandalay Bay has a similar vibe — but gambling $2.7 billion on the concept and putting his name on the building made it clear that this would be his defining statement. Wynn invested his very legacy in the new resort, and history will likely vindicate him. Substance over style will be the wave of the future.
Wynn’s vision is borne out by the cresting wave of condominium development that will wash over the Strip in the next few years. With condo-hotel projects like MGM’s Residences, visitors can literally own a piece of the action, putting their units in rental pools. Luxury residential condos, from Panorama Towers to a cluster of developments along the South Strip, will let people live high-roller lifestyles all year round.
MGM Mirage’s City Center will likely take this concept to the next level, blurring the line between the Strip as a vacation spot and the Strip as home.
The lesson to be learned from 2005 seems to be this: visitors to Las Vegas are demanding excellence over the exotic. Smart operators will see this trend and cater to it.
If they are successful, the Strip might see the same sort of growth in the next 50 years as it has in the past half-century. But that will be something for future historians to judge.
I got all historical in the rest of the article, talking about lessons to be learned from 1955.