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Originally Posted by dalakhani
Hotels almost always lose money in the first quarter. Bellagio put Steve Wynn out of business for a couple of years and it had nothing to do with gaming losses and that opened during a pretty robust economy. Just imagine if it had been saddled with an extra 4000 condos to sell and it had to succeed in today's market.
Considering everything, City Center has done fine and it will be a great success. You think Baldwin a fool? Lanni? Murren? Kirkorian?
Vegas is shifting its focus once again as forward thinking people realize that gaming isnt going to keep the town afloat alone forever. The old economy is dead. What will Vegas be fifty years from now? What is city center a big step toward?
Vegas's competition as a gaming center is too great. Asian gamblers will play in Macao (hence the goldrush at the start of the last decade over there) before crossing the Pacific. East coast gamblers can go to Atlantis, Borgata, Mohegan Sun or a million other places that will be sprouting up. Charlestown even has table games on the horizon.
Vegas is shifting toward being a convention town. The days of castles, volcanoes and the french riviera are numbered and they will be replaced by green friendly, sterile black buildings with efficient meeting space in tandem with condensed versions of all we love about Las Vegas. There will still be gambling and nightlife but it will be a piece of the pie, not the whole thing.
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Vegas has been a convention town for years. However did you not see the numbers showing that group visits were and continue to be down?
Are those guys smart? Sure they are but the reality of the situation is that the numbers that make the thing work are now not even close to realistic and they thought they had an ironclad partner who turned out to be less than that. I am not a Wall Street analyst nor do i claim to have any expertise in the area. But I can read and outside of MGM employees statements, I havent read anything positive about this project and a whole lot negative. When there are rumblings that MGM can go bellyup if this thing goes south, I think your optimism is ....overly optimistic?
By the way there is a 150,000sq foot casino as one of the major pieces of the city center puzzle so to say that it is non-gambling related is not exactly true.