Aliante Station Breaks Ground
When a new hotel breaks ground in Las Vegas it’s pretty big news, but it’s not something I usually spend a lot of time talking about in this space. I mean after all, groundbreaking is mostly ceremonial and there’s not a lot to look at so why bother?
But when the new hotel is from the company that has created two of my favorite hotels in Las Vegas, I sit up and take notice.
Station Casinos broke ground last week on their new Aliante Station hotel and casino in the northernmost reaches of Las Vegas. It will be situated on 40 acres of land on the northeast corner of Interstate 215 and Aliante Parkway within the 1,905-acre Aliante master-planned community. That’s about 15 miles due north of Bellagio and about seven miles north of their Texas Station hotel where Austins steakhouse is located for those of you who have been there.
That’s pretty far north and quite a distance from where most Vegas visitors will want to go so why should you care?
Because Station’s Red Rock Resort is currently my favorite hotel in the city and their Green Valley Ranch is not too far behind it on the list.
In fact, the same partnership that brought us Green Valley Ranch is behind the Aliante Station project, a 50/50 deal between Station Casinos and the Greenspun Corporation, owners of several local media outlets.
The $600 million hotel and casino will incorporate many of the very successful lessons learned in the creation of their other properties including the use of a contemporary desert design with modern shapes accented with natural materials such as Jerusalem stone, copper, pewter, onyx, wenge wood, and rocky mist marble.
When it opens in late 2008 it will have 202 guest rooms and suites; ranging in size from approximately 400 square feet to more than 1,500 square feet. 400 additional rooms will be added in a second phase of construction at a later date.
The casino will have all of the usual suspects including slots, table games, a race and sports book, a high-limit gaming area, and a poker room with a bingo hall expected to be added in that second phase.
There will be six restaurants, many of which are well known to anyone who has visited a Stations hotel before. They include the popular Feast Buffet; the 24-hour casual dining of Grand Café; Cabo Cantina featuring Mexican favorites; Tides Oyster Bar with New Orleans cuisine; and a steakhouse and Italian restaurant.
For entertainment purposes there will be a 700-seat showroom, a 16-screen movie theater complex, an arcade with video games, and several bars and lounges. A bowling center and a Kids Quest child care center will be added later.
From the Vegas4Visitors Weekly Update of October 16, 2006:
Aliante Station Sneak Peek
The folks at Station Casinos held an open house for residents near their planned Aliante Station hotel and casino to give neighbors a sneak peek at what’s in store. If the artist rendering is any indication, the hotel will have a similar look and feel to the very successful Red Rock Station. Although not a carbon copy by any means, the overall affect is similar with clean, long horizontal lines mixed with stacked stone to evoke a vaguely retro ‘60s Palm Springs feeling.
The new hotel, which will be built on the north side of Las Vegas, will feature over 200 rooms in a nine-story tower when it opens plus a casino, several restaurants including a buffet and food court, a spa and salon, movie theaters, a live entertainment venue, and more. Future expansion of the hotel could include more hotel rooms, restaurants, and perhaps a bowling alley.
The hotel will break ground early next year and should be complete by the end of 2008 at the cost of around $600 million.
According to reports in the Las Vegas Review Journal, the open house was a success with most of the comments from nearby residents falling into the “why do we have to wait until 2008” category.
From the Vegas4Visitors Weekly Update of September 25, 2006:
The cost of doing business in Las Vegas keeps getting higher, as evidenced by the announcement last week that the price tag for the next Station Casino has jumped by about $150 million before they even started building the thing. Aliante Station is the name of the property and it will be built on the far north side of town along the Interstate 215 beltway. Originally expected to come in for around $450 million, Stations is now forecasting the joint to cost northward of $600 million. Part of the increase has to do with rising construction and development costs but another part of it is that they have decided to expand the scope of the project, although they refused to give any details about what that exactly meant.
Most likely they are looking at the out of the box, runaway success of their latest Red Rock Resort, a hotel that cost nearly a billion to build, and are hoping to move Aliante into a somewhat higher tax bracket so to speak.
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