Station Casinos Looking to Double Footprint in Las Vegas

It’s been a plan long in the making, but the company’s ambitions are finally starting to take shape. With concrete plans for new developments and an extremely bullish outlook, Red Rock makes this huge undertaking seems like child’s play.

New Developments

Station Casinos’ parent company – Red Rock Resorts (RRR) – is a publicly-traded company and as such holds, an earnings call at the end of each quarter. The plan to “double the footprint” of the company in Las Vegas goes back at least to the Q3 2021 Earnings Call, a transcript of which is still available on the Motley Fool’s website. Back then it was Lorenzo Fertitta, Vice Chairman of RRR, who commented on the company’s expansion, adding that the plan is to “take basically the heart of each of the properties and sell off the remaining real estate surrounding those development sites”.

The strategy of buying up promising regulated land and investing at the right time has been a staple of the company’s planning, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal now reports that there’s a timeframe for the doubling of the company’s Las Vegas footprint, with 2030 being a possible target for accomplishing that. The exclusive report details that RRR is planning six new projects in total, which is how it plans to accomplish its goal of doubling its Las Vegas presence, and judging by past and present notions, executives, as well as investors, remain bullish on the company’s prospects.

Growth Plan

Probably one of the six projects that’s closest to current days will be the so-called Durango project. It was a plan from 2008, and the land was owned by Station since 2000, which just goes to show that when the company buys land, it will most probably become a money-making investment sooner or later. The upcoming Durango resort will be situated on South Durango Drive, hence the provisional name. It’s slated for a late 2023 or early 2024 launch date, and according to plans approved by the Clark County Commission, we can expect a casino with an approximately 80,000 square feet footprint, as well as a hotel with more than 200 rooms.

Other plans are said to include a complete redevelopment of the company’s hotel-casino on Tropicana Avenue, the 260-room Wild Wild West. This would mean the establishment will have to be closed down and demolished before work on the new development can begin. It was clear since July that three more properties will be demolished – the Texas Station, Fiesta Henderson, and the Fiesta Rancho, however, their lands are expected to be entirely sold off. And a fourth establishment completes the list of sites to be jettisoned, and that’s the company’s Cactus Avenue property.

This might seem a bit counterintuitive – the company is selling off four of its assets, however, this opens up possibilities for it to purchase new land and start the remaining new developments on it. It’s important to note that just because the parent company RRR has decided to buy the land, it doesn’t mean it will be utilized as grounds for new developments right away. With a style of buying and investing only when the time is right, plus the bullish outlook the company is exuding, however, it’s probably a safe bet to think so.