Palms Casino Resort
Palms Casino Resort is a hotel and casino located near the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, United States. It is owned and operated by the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians. It includes 703 rooms and a casino. It was originally owned by the Maloof family, and primarily overseen by George Maloof. He purchased the site in 1997, and construction began three years later. The Palms opened on November 15, 2001, with Station Casinos and The Greenspun Corporation as minority owners. It included a casino, restaurants, nightclubs, and a 42-story hotel. The resort catered to local residents and tourists, and also became popular among celebrities and young adults. It has made several television appearances, and was the main setting for the 2002 reality television show The Real World: Las Vegas, which contributed to its fame.
A second hotel structure, the 40-story Fantasy Tower, was opened in 2005. A recording studio was also added, making the Palms the first casino resort to include such a facility. The resort also includes a movie theater, which has hosted several film premieres. A Playboy Club opened in the Fantasy Tower in 2006, becoming the first such club to open in several decades. A music venue, the Pearl Concert Theater, was added in 2007. Palms Place, a high-rise condo hotel, was opened on the property a year later.
The Palms experienced financial difficulty during the Great Recession, and was sold in 2011, to Texas Pacific Group and Leonard Green & Partners. The Maloof family retained a two-percent interest in the Palms. A $50 million renovation took place in 2012, to help reinvigorate the resort's popularity. Red Rock Resorts, the parent company of Station Casinos, purchased the Palms for $312.5 million in 2016. The company launched a $620 million renovation which included new restaurants and nightclubs, but the changes failed to restore the resort's past prominence.
The Palms and other Nevada casinos were closed in March 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, Red Rock sold the resort for $650 million to the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, which reopened it on April 27, 2022. Under its new ownership, the Palms is the first Las Vegas resort to have a Native American owner.
History
In 1997, George Maloof purchased a property on Flamingo Road, west of the Las Vegas Strip. He paid less than $1 million per acre. At the time, he had no immediate plans for the site. Maloof was the owner of the Fiesta hotel-casino in North Las Vegas. His initial plan was to grow the Fiesta name with a new location on the Flamingo Road site, but he later decided that the property would be better suited for a hybrid locals/tourist resort. The property was initially divided across two parcels, with Wynn Road running between them. In June 1999, work was underway to realign Wynn Road, allowing for construction to eventually begin on a new hotel-casino that Maloof was planning.In July 2000, Maloof agreed to sell the Fiesta to Station Casinos. Later that month, Station and The Greenspun Corporation both agreed to purchase a separate six-percent stake in Maloof's upcoming resort. The Maloof family owned the remaining 88 percent. Preliminary work on the property began on July 24, 2000. Two and a half months later, Maloof announced that the resort would be named the Palms. It was scheduled to open on December 12, 2001, initially with 470 rooms, although Maloof planned to eventually expand to 2,000 within 10 years. The project was designed by Jerde Partnership International, based in Los Angeles. KGA Architecture served as the executive architect. When having the Palms designed, Maloof relied on customer feedback that he had received at the Fiesta. High ceilings were added at the Palms to reduce cigarette smoke, and a large number of restrooms were added as well. The casino would also feature an abundance of video poker and loose slot machines, like the Fiesta.
Perini Building Company was chosen as the general contractor, after working on an expansion of the Fiesta in 1999. An official groundbreaking ceremony was held for the Palms on October 24, 2000. A fire occurred on the lower floors of the hotel tower in April 2001, during construction. The fire, apparently caused by welding, caused $75,000 in minimal damage and would not delay construction. The 42-story hotel tower was topped off on June 7, 2001. It was originally planned as a 40-story building, but the floor count was increased to beat out the nearby Rio hotel, which stood at 41 stories. The project's budget was $265 million, although improvements to a pool and spa courtyard added another $3 million in expenses. The Palms was partially financed with a $55 million credit line, from First Security Bank and Wells Fargo.
Construction proceeded slightly ahead of schedule. A few days prior to the September 11 attacks, resort officials announced that the Palms would open one month earlier than scheduled, to take advantage of the busy Thanksgiving weekend. After the attacks, Maloof planned to proceed with the opening, despite the potential impact on tourism. The Palms had already hired most of its 2,500 employees. To help promote the opening, Maloof invited high rollers and Hollywood agents to a party at Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion, featuring faux gaming tables and images of the resort. The party was aimed at attracting celebrities to the resort. In addition, Maloof mailed offers to Las Vegas residents, hoping to sign up 50,000 members for the new Palms slot club. He also made promotional appearances on local news stations and The Today Show. The hotel portion would be marketed in Arizona, California, and Maloof's home state of New Mexico. Maloof also planned to promote the resort through his basketball team, the Sacramento Kings. The resort's opening was eagerly anticipated.
Opening and early years
The Palms opened to thousands of invited guests and VIPs on November 15, 2001, at 7:00 p.m. Notable attendees included Pamela Anderson, Matt Dillon, Nevada governor Kenny Guinn, Samuel L. Jackson, Joe Pesci, Tara Reid, Dennis Rodman, Martin Sheen and Charlize Theron. The resort opened to the public at 11:00 p.m.Maloof served as the public face for the resort. He planned for the Palms to appeal to the same young demographic as the nearby Hard Rock Hotel. He also hoped that its location, near Interstate 15, would make it appealing to local residents. He considered the Palms close enough to the Strip to attract tourists, but far enough to bring in locals, who generally avoid the Strip. The Palms would also benefit from the nearby Rio and Gold Coast resorts, which were popular among locals.
Maloof said he wanted to create "the ultimate party hotel in the world". The resort included various restaurants, a nightclub, and a 14-screen movie theater. The property's east side was targeted at tourists, containing the hotel tower, nightclubs, and several restaurants. The west side included locals-oriented amenities, such as a food court and the movie theater. The latter was part of the Brenden Theatres chain. The theater opened shortly after the rest of the resort, on November 21, 2001. It was the first Brenden Theatres location to open in Las Vegas. Michael Morton, the brother of Hard Rock Hotel owner Peter Morton, operated several venues at the Palms, including a nightclub, a steakhouse, and the pool area. They were operated through Morton's company, N9NE Group. The Palms also had of convention space. In subsequent years, the resort would add other features, such as a medical center for employees and the public, and a tattoo parlor by Carey Hart and John Huntington.
Maloof was satisfied with the Palms' early financial results, although local residents were generally not impressed at first, complaining of issues such as cramped casino aisles and loud music. Maloof managed to attract locals by launching a promotional campaign, introducing more full-pay video poker machines, and removing some machines for more space. During the day, the property was frequented by older local residents, while younger tourists would arrive later in the evening. The resort was popular with nightclub-goers and celebrities.
By mid-2003, Maloof was planning to eventually add a second hotel tower, due to the strong success of the resort. Later in 2003, the Palms hosted a 50th anniversary celebration for the magazine Playboy and renamed a nearby street as Hugh Hefner Drive. A year later, the Palms partnered with Playboy to eventually use the magazine's name at the resort.
In 2004, a pair of identical 26-year-old twins won a resort contest to become Palm Girls. They went on to represent the Palms through television appearances and in printed media, and their faces were later featured on casino chips for the resort.
Construction of the new hotel tower was underway in 2004, with Whiting-Turner as general contractor. It would eventually open as the Fantasy Tower. It was also designed by Jerde Partnership, and was built south of the original tower. The Fantasy Tower began opening in October 2005, with various suites. The tower officially celebrated its opening in May 2006. The Playboy Club opened in the tower five months later. The Fantasy Tower also added a recording studio for musicians.
A music venue, the Pearl Concert Theater, was opened in early 2007. By that point, revenue from local residents had dropped from 80 to 65 percent, with tourists becoming more prevalent at the resort. Later in 2007, Richard Branson, wearing a body harness, jumped from the Fantasy Tower in a stunt to promote his Virgin America airline.
A high-rise condo hotel, known as Palms Place, was opened in 2008. It was the third and final tower to be built on the Palms property. That year, the Palms began to suffer financially due to the economic effects of the Great Recession.
By 2010, the Palms had accumulated 661 building code violations, which Maloof attributed to significant expansion of the resort over the years. In mid-2010, Maloof reluctantly agreed to have a scent distributed through the casino, in an effort to compete with rivals that were doing the same. However, the scent was discontinued after less than a month, due to negative customer reception.
In September 2010, N9NE Group sued the Palms after the resort tried to fire Andy Belmonti, a N9NE executive who was responsible for overseeing the company's venues at the property. Belmonti had recently began work on a new restaurant for Morton at the Wynn Las Vegas resort, and the Palms alleged that profits had declined since then, arguing that Belmonti had neglected his duties at the Palms. It was also alleged that N9NE used Palms money to pay off several employee lawsuits, without informing the resort. The Palms countersued and further alleged that Morton had misused resort money and staff for his own purposes, including house parties. The suit also accused Belmonti of carrying out a financial cover-up, and alleged that another executive had escorted underage women into 21-and-up venues at the resort. The Palms and a group of N9NE investors sought to remove Morton and Belmonti, who denied the accusations. Both sides settled in January 2011, with N9NE departing the Palms. The resort would take over operations of the company's former venues there.