In the last year we have seen Stations Casinos make a play for land around the “Strip.”  With a location on the South Strip near South Point Casino. 

Major land acquisitions around their original flag ship casino, Palace Station and now they are assembling 70+ acres around their Wild Wild West Casino on West Tropicana.  Currently Stations is building a $600+ million dollar casino in North Las Vegasat Aliante Master Planned community.  After it looks like they are headed near the Strip with one of these 3 properties to build on. 

Stations will compete well with its service oriented marketing plan. It has carefully and successfully fine tuned its marketing on the local residents who are not easily impressed.  They now have an upper end product which they initially rolled out with Green Valley Resort followed by Redrock and now the Aliante unit.  This concept has caught fire both with the local residents as well as travelers who love the pampering these properties offer.  It only make sense that Stations should head for the Strip where the lucrative tourist dollar is more abundant.The major cross roads on the strip are starting to get more attention from gaming.  For years we have seen small casino operations struggle to stay afloat, even the

Rio struggled for a while and offered suites at room prices.  Things seem to be changing in a big way as we see the major success of the Palms and other off near strip casinos are doing much better now.

Other properties on major cross streets are starting to move. I was watching the local county commission meeting a few weeks ago when the County approved a casino site on the south west corner of Spring Mountain road and I-15.  That is a very short distance from the location of the proposed Dragon City Casino of a few years ago.  These casinos if built would connect the Strip with China Town and bring new life to the industrial area that currently sites between them.  Purchasing property just off strip looks like a great investment for the future as their is very little land left on the strip and it commands a huge price tag.

Near Strip condos will also benefit from this expansion as new casinos are built and existing communities become better locations. Pinnacle condominiums would be benefited if Stations build a new Casino on the Wild Wild West location.  This would make the neighborhoods between the two projects a much more desirable location for business and may trigger a change in the area.Normally I don’t directly write about hot areas.  I generally keep this information private for my clients.  I do so now to let you know that understanding the real estate market can make you money, even in a down market.  Every real estate deal has its own set of considerations and understanding those factors is what I do best.