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Terminal 3
The buzz about McCarran International Airport’s new Terminal 3 lasted through much of the second half of 2012. The $2.4 billion, half-mile-long facility opened in late June and was greeted with much anticipation.
In a shiny new building, T3 offers a state-of-the-art Customs and Border Protection processing area, as well as two security checkpoints so passengers can access gates both from the street and from an underground tram. More than a dozen pieces of public art adorn the terminal’s walls.
Sixteen international airlines and several domestic carriers call T3 their home. Virgin America, Alaska, Sun Country, Frontier, JetBlue, Hawaiian and United have taken up residence, as have AeroMexico, Air Canada, AirBerlin, ArkeFly, British Airways, Korean Air, Philippine Airlines, Volaris and others.
International air service has been one of the bright spots for McCarran in 2012. It has grown, while domestic service has shrunk.
Panamanian carrier Copa Airlines, for example, was the first new airline to move into T3. Since settling there, it has increased its Las Vegas flights from four a week to six. The airline is an important passenger connector between the city and South America.
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Water parks
It has been eight years since Las Vegans slid down water slides and floated in inner tubes at the Wet ‘n Wild Water Park on the Strip.
One of summer’s greatest joys dried up in 2004 when owners decided to shutter the park in the hopes of opening a new casino.
Not anymore. Multiple developers have water parks in the works.
A Wet ‘n’ Wild, developed by an Australian entertainment company, is headed to the southern end of Summerlin, while Cowabunga Bay Las Vegas is coming to Henderson near the Galleria at Sunset mall. Developers hope to open both by Memorial Day.
Meanwhile, a third proposal surfaced earlier this month when MGM Resorts International approached the Winchester Town Advisory Board to ask permission to build a water park at Circus Circus. It would include a children’s pool, river channel and two water slides.
A company consultant said the plan will be presented to the Clark County Commission on Jan. 9 Similar projects take about 18 months to complete.
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Mega-conventions
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority won’t have a final count on the number of conventioneers who came to the city in 2012 for another couple of months, but by mid-December, it was clear that some of the largest shows in town had a banner year.
While total attendance was up only fractionally, the number of shows staged in Las Vegas grew by double-digit percentages this year.
The biggest surge in attendance came from mega-shows with six-figure attendance. Those included the International Consumer Electronics Show; MAGIC, a major fashion industry show; the National Association of Broadcasters convention; and the Specialty Equipment Market Association auto accessories show.
In addition, Las Vegas in September hosted MINExpo, a mining equipment show that occurs once every four years and features some of the largest machines in the world. The convention filled 850,000 square feet with exhibits.
The cycle begins again in January, and officials hope for equally strong numbers in 2013. CES arrives at the end of the first week of the year.
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Station Casinos
While other locals casinos struggled, Station Casinos consistently turned a profit during the first three quarters of 2012. It was a modest profit, but a profit nevertheless.
The casino chain saw growth three quarters in a row.
In the third quarter, Station reported net revenue of $295.7 million, up almost 5 percent from a year ago, and a profit of $11.2 million. That’s a vast improvement from the losses it experienced in 2011.
Station also continues to expand its share of the locals market. The number of guests the company served at its restaurants and buffets — a good indicator of overall traffic — increased more than 5 percent year over year.
Locals casinos in general underperformed in 2012 as valley residents continued to reel from the recession.
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Neonopolis
After years of uncertainty and high tenant turnover, Neonopolis appears to have turned a corner this year.
In the spring, Drink and Drag opened a drag-queen-staffed bar and bowling alley that draws thousands of visitors a week. Denny’s in November debuted a 6,400-square-foot restaurant that will include a wedding chapel. And Krave Massive, a gay and lesbian dance club, is set to open New Year’s Eve.
“We’re just building on a buzz that has been created,” owner Rohit Joshi said. “When we figured out retail wasn’t going to work, we started looking at entertainment models.”
Coming next: a microbrewery.
Neonopolis also benefited from other expansions and renovations downtown, including the addition of a permanent zip line and renovations to several Fremont Street casinos.
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Tony Marnell
Completion still is years away, but XpressWest, the proposed high-speed train between Las Vegas and Southern California, and its founder, Tony Marnell, are poised to change tourism and transportation in Las Vegas.
When plans for the project, then known as DesertXpress, first started rolling in the mid-2000s, the idea was to run trains between Las Vegas and Victorville, Calif. Marnell expected the plan to work because many of his Southern California customers came from the Inland Empire, not Los Angeles or Orange County.
But critics mocked the plan and its Victorville stop. Why would motorists drive to Victorville to leave their vehicles, ride a train for more than an hour and arrive in Las Vegas without transportation?
The game-changer came this summer: a new name and a new deal. DesertXpress in June became XpressWest (to more accurately reflect that it will be part of a larger western rail network), and officials signed an agreement with the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority to link the train into that system. Customers will be able to ride the train from Las Vegas to Victorville to downtown Los Angeles.
The $6 billion project will be privately funded, Marnell says, but the company is seeking a $5.5 billion loan from the Federal Railroad Administration.
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Boutique hotels
With no new resorts planned for Las Vegas, hotel owners are trying to keep the Strip fresh and relevant by introducing a new product: boutique hotels that promise a more intimate, personal experience.
Las Vegas has a few boutique hotels on and off the Strip. They include Hotel 32 in the Monte Carlo, Rumor on Harmon Avenue and the El Cortez Cabana Suites downtown. But the city generally isn’t known for such properties.
All that is changing thanks to the Nobu Hotel coming to Caesars Palace next month, as well as a group of Strip properties undergoing renovations and rebrandings. Those include the Sahara being transformed into the SLS (slated to open in 2014), Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall and Saloon being renovated into a rooftop nightclub hot spot (also slated for 2014) and The Hotel at Mandalay Bay being rebranded as the Delano Las Vegas (scheduled to open by the end of 2013). The Lady Luck also is being transformed into a boutique hotel, the Downtown Grand, opening in 2013.
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Spirit Airlines
Airline customers often gripe about being nickel-and-dimed by airlines that charge too many ancillary fees, but most keep flying anyway.
Such is the case with Spirit Airlines, McCarran International Airport’s fastest-growing carrier.
The Miramar, Fla.-based company established a crew base in Las Vegas this year. Spirit had flown to Las Vegas from Detroit and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., for years but expanded dramatically at McCarran in 2011 and 2012.
Today, Spirit runs an average of more than 18 flights a day to 11 destinations from Las Vegas and is the sixth busiest carrier at McCarran.
While the company has had a few scrapes with its flight-attendant union — earlier this month, the Association of Flight Attendants demonstrated at an event at which Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza spoke — the airline appears to be in growth mode and has ordered new aircraft for future expansion.
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Bill Martin
Las Vegas banker Bill Martin pulled off what might be the deal of the year for the local finance industry. He sold a young bank with steady losses at a premium.
Martin, the CEO of Service1st Bank of Nevada, sold it and its parent company Western Liberty Bancorp, which he also led, to Bank of Nevada’s parent Western Alliance Bancorp for $55 million in October.
Western Liberty’s stock was at $2.85 per share when the deal was announced. On the next regular trading day, it jumped 34 percent to $3.82, posting the largest percentage gain that day of any company listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market or the New York Stock Exchange.
Service1st was founded in January 2007 and, like many young banks, swam in the red during its first few years. It lost $4.2 million in 2007, $5.1 million in 2008, $17.4 million in 2009 and $12.4 million in 2011. It earned $186,000 of profit in 2010, according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data.
Bank of Nevada had 11 branches in the valley and $2.4 billion of local deposits as of mid-year. Service1st’s main branch, on West Sunset Road in Las Vegas, had $107 million of deposits. Service1st also had an outpost on South Eastern Avenue with $37 million of deposits, but that branch closed in September.
As part of its acquisition, Western Alliance also took ownership of Las Vegas Sunset Properties, a subsidiary Western Liberty formed in 2011 to own and manage non-performing assets, such as soured real estate loans.
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Gun ranges
At least five new shooting ranges opened in Las Vegas this year, while the city’s first gun store expanded.
New to the shooting scene are Machine Gun Vegas, Battlefield Vegas, the Strip Gun Club and Range 702. The Gun Store, which opened in 1984, doubled in size, while the new Guns and Ammo Garage partnered with the Mob Museum to let people fire off Prohibition-era weapons.
Bob Irwin, owner of the Gun Store, said Las Vegas has room for more than one gun range. Before he expanded, people waited up to two hours on weekends to shoot, he said.
“When Mandalay Bay opened, Caesars Palace didn’t shut down, it built another tower,” Irwin said. “People don’t come to Las Vegas for one casino. They come for all of them. If all these gun ranges do their own advertising, especially in out-of-town markets, that should increase the market.”
