Golden Gate plans expansion
Las Vegas’ oldest hotel is looking to become the freshest face on Fremont Street.
The downtown Golden Gate hotel-casino recently filed plans with the city for a major expansion and renovation of the property at Fremont and Main streets where it first opened as a hotel in 1906.
The expansion seeks to blast through the south wall of the existing building to add a five-story structure with 16 new hotel suites, including two 1,600-square-foot suites that will occupy the top floor.
Owners would also move and modernize the existing deli, move the hotel lobby to the new structure and expand the casino floor.
The $12 million proposal would be the fifth major hotel-casino renovation in the area of Fremont Street since the beginning of the Great Recession, a period marked by stalled projects and shuttered casinos on the Strip.
Downtown, the Golden Nugget, El Cortez, Gold Spike and Plaza have also made big upgrades in recent years.
The Planning Commission voted 7-0 late Tuesday in favor of the two items needed to approve the project. It goes to the City Council Oct. 19.
Customer Jeff Spain said it is long overdue. Spain, a longtime Las Vegas visitor from Nashville, Tenn., who plays blackjack at a rate of $150 per hand, said he prefers Golden Gate’s cozy atmosphere to gambling on the Strip but doesn’t like the small hotel rooms and limited food choices.
"I think they desperately need it," Spain said. "They can give me comps all day long but it is just a coffee shop."
Spain says the ability of a casino to offer big bettors modern rooms makes it more likely that he and others like him will spend money on Fremont Street, an area that’s critical to the success of the city’s larger vision for downtown.
"There are some things downtown has, and Golden Gate in particular, that the Strip doesn’t," Spain said. "One is that sort of old Vegas style and feel."
Besides the large suites, the addition will include 14 suites that are about 500 square feet each, some conference rooms and larger, modern restrooms that will serve the entire casino.
The existing restrooms will be removed to make more room in the casino, and the deli will move into what is now a small hotel lobby.
Stevens hopes to have the casino phase completed in March and the hotel rooms open by May. Construction will require at least a temporary closure of the existing deli, but the casino’s signature shrimp cocktail will still be available on property at the restaurant.
Besides temporary construction jobs, the project will also result in about 25 new permanent jobs working the expanded casino floor and the new hotel rooms. The Golden Gate already employs about 260 people.
The approximately 30,000-square-foot expansion is the biggest upgrade to the Golden Gate since at least 1990, said minority owner Mark Brandenburg.
Derek Stevens, who with his brother Greg Stevens is a majority owner, said the time is right for investment because visitation to Fremont Street appears to be bouncing back from the recession years and they want to be part of the comeback.
"We are really right at the cusp of a significant turnaround downtown," Stevens said, citing a recent $35 million renovation of the Plaza at Fremont and Main streets and hundreds of millions of dollars Landry’s Restaurants Inc. has invested in the Golden Nugget in recent years, including the construction of a new hotel tower.
Year-to-date gambling revenue downtown is up 1.1 percent, including a 10.2 percent bump in July. If it holds up for the year it would be the first annual increase since a 0.4 percent uptick in 2007.
In addition to improving the landscaping between Fremont and Carson streets, plans call for the new structure to have a colorfully lit facade topped by a large, digital billboard-type screen.
"It is going to make the Nugget look better, it is going to make our parking lot look better and it is going to make Main Street look a hell of a lot better," Stevens said.
Contact reporter Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@reviewjournal.com or 702-229-6435.
