After purchasing a building next to the Las Vegas Club from the Granite Gaming Group in downtown Las Vegas, the D Las Vegas Casino & Hotel, and Golden Gate owners say they’re going to build a third hotel-casino.
On Thursday, the brothers who also own the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center, Derek and Greg Stevens, said the property the building sits on will provide land for a project that has yet to be named along the Fremont Street Experience light canopy. The building now houses the Topless Girls of Glitter Gulch adult entertainment club and two small casinos. The specifics of the purchase were not disclosed. On June 27, the La Bayou and Mermaids casino, as well as the topless club will close. According to the Stevens brothers, the two casinos current employees will be offered opportunities for priority interviews for new positions at the Golden Gate and the D.
When asked how large the new hotel might be, as well as other questions related to the new property, Derek Stevens said it’s too early to project those specifics. Stevens did say that they knew a larger footprint is something they were looking at, and that he and his team will need some time to determine what the project will look like, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He said, what’s important to the development plan is the fact that his Freemont Street frontage will more than double. Stevens said, “We’ll have the entire west side of the block (along Main Street) and the north side. Now, we have the entire east side and all the frontage along Fremont Street.”
According to Stevens, his team would make the necessary analysis to determine the appropriate number of slot machines, rooms, restaurants, table games, and amenities that would be best suited for the site and that it would be made “as quickly as reasonable.” Also part of the process said Stevens, is the inclusion of analysis of the historical significance of the Topless Girls of Glitter Gulch, Mermaids, and La Bayou. Steven said that he expects business at the three properties to increase in the coming months as last visits are made by loyal patrons.
Stevens was the only qualified bidder for Clark County’s Bridger Building at Third Street and Bridger Avenue. He purchased the property for $2.7 million and will use it for future growth. In Thursday’s interview he said it was likely that the Bridger Building would be used for warehousing, shipping, and receiving, as well as for corporate office space, currently lacking.
Over the years, numerous properties have had cosmetic work done, but the Stevens’ new hotel-casino would be downtown Las Vegas’ first ground-up hotel development in decades. The brothers purchased the Las Vegas Club in August 2015.