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A slice of old-school Las Vegas is coming to downtown when the Circa Resort & Casino opens next month, mirroring what the rejuvenated and expanded Golden Nugget did 35-plus years ago.
The Nevada Gaming Commission is slated Thursday to grant approval for its opening Oct. 28 after the Gaming Control Board signed off earlier in the month. Owner Derek Stevens’ 44-story, 777-room hotel won’t open until the end of the year, but it will start with its gaming floor, restaurants, sportsbook and pools. Some estimates have placed the price tag at $1 billion.
“Circa in every way redefines the downtown experience,” said Josh Swissman, founding partner of the consulting firm The Strategy Organization. “This is an amazingly architecturally-forward, big amenity-rich new property.
“I think it will drive a bunch of incremental traffic to downtown. It certainly raises the bar for competition downtown, but it’s so spectacular that it will draw folks from the Strip back to downtown as well. You have that stadium pool and Garage Mahal to get people in and out and robust food and beverage offerings and what could be one of the most amazing sportsbooks around.”
After Steve Wynn took control of the Golden Nugget in downtown he opened its first tower in 1977 to make it a four-star property and seven years later in 1984 he opened a second tower and showroom to go with it.
“That’s why the Golden Nugget was (renovated and expanded) to draw people off the Strip,” Swissman said. “The Circa is just the latest incarnation of that migration. They did it with great excitement and restaurants and programmed it with ground-breaking headliner entertainment and gaming experience.”
Circa adds another old-school element that other resort properties don’t. You have to be 21 to enter the Circa, which means no strollers and families.
Stadium Swim, with a 40-foot high HDTV at @CircaLasVegas, still on schedule to open on October 28. pic.twitter.com/wcpMgwdkuN
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) September 22, 2020
“It harkens back to the older days of Las Vegas where it was an adult experience,” Swissman said. ‘In many ways what Derek Stevens is doing in the downtown is going back to the way Vegas was and make it very focused on the adult experience and making it a destination downtown that draws people from the Strip back to downtown. It’s really focused on the gaming experience more so than a ton of non-gaming amenities like nightclubs and showrooms. It’s redefining the downtown landscape, just like the Golden Nugget.”
The two-story casino measures 1.25 million square feet and will feature 1,350 slot machines and 49 table games.
Swissman said Stevens is building “a nice portfolio of assets” downtown that includes the Golden Gate, which is a value-based property, and the D Las Vegas that is the current flagship and caters to mid-market guests. Once Circa’s casino opens and the hotel opens by the end of the year, that will represent a higher-price offering.
“He has a nice mix of properties, which allows him to cater to a very broad spectrum of customers and guests that visit Las Vegas,” Swissman said. “I continue to be impressed with Derek Stevens with not only his ability to understand the market but also to become a figurehead for guests when they travel to Las Vegas in the downtown area.”
The Circa opening provides a much-needed boost for downtown that has been hurt more than some originally expected since the reopening because downtown’s customer base has been attracted to the Strip by lower than normal prices in the resorts.
“It definitely will help elevate the overall game of Las Vegas,” Swissman said. “Anytime that happens whether you are the newest property or oldest property on the block, all you have to do is look at the Strip and anytime a new property opens that raises all ships. The whole submarket will benefit from Circa and individual operators will benefit as well. They will feel competition from Circa, but it will bring more people to the area.”
Circa will have the world’s largest sportsbook — three stories with a 78 million-pixel high definition screen and capacity for 1,000 people. Circa will have a pool amphitheater and six pools where people can watch sports as well.
Circa will draw sports bettors from across the country and locally, especially with its easy-to-access garage. The experience is likely to be so compelling that you will have big groups of people that come to watch the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament, Swissman said. In addition, he said it will also attract the “Vegas-curious crowd” that want to check out what’s new and fresh and must-see properties.
“Those two groups are pretty substantive,” Swissman said.
Circa is opening at a historic time in Las Vegas history with the coronavirus pandemic substantially reducing the number of visitors because of a reluctance of people to fly long distances. Vegas has been relying on fly-in and drive-in traffic from Western states.
“It certainly is an interesting time to open a business,” Swissman said. “But if you take a look at what is going on in other parts of the city with Park MGM and Nomad opening again and Tropicana reopening (last week), you have to go off the signals that the big operators are sending. MGM is sending a signal when they reopen that everyone one of their properties on the Strip is open again. Penn National sent a signal when they reopened their one and only asset on the Strip in the Tropicana. It‘s the same with Caesars Entertainment reopening their hotel tower at the Linq.
“I think the demand is there or the forecast of demand there. You will see the same thing in the downtown area. It will be something that needs to be watched closely because we still are in the state of the pandemic, but I feel cautiously optimistic that this added capacity Circa brings to Las Vegas will do well to bring additional people to the city instead of cannibalizing the volume that’s already here.”
