Boyd Buying Station?!?

I don't understand. Boyd's stock is at $3.40 a share. They've halted construction on Echelon. And now they've sent a "non-binding preliminary indication of interest" indicating they want to buy a whole bunch of Station Casinos properties for $950 million in cash? The letter says Boyd has $2 billion in liquidity.

It's times like these I'm glad I'm not on the Vegas Gang podcast. I'm not qualified.

Lunch at The Las Vegas Country Club

I've just come in from lunch here...


That's the clubhouse of the storied Las Vegas Country Club, a legendary retreat for the city's rich, powerful and notable right behind the Las Vegas Hilton. Remember the post I did on the Meadows School a while back? Well, the parents of those kids are members here. From Steve & Edie to Lefty Rosenthal to porn stars, this place has been a gossip factory for decades.

I'd never been, but I had a getting-to-know-you meal with Bill Boyd, Boyd gaming's co-founder and executive chairman. There wasn't a whole lot of news to come from the visit other than that they're still considering their options for what to do with the stalled Echelon resort on the Strip and when to do it and he's pleased for his downtown properties that Hawaiian Air is adding another Honolulu-Vegas flight starting soon, which I hadn't heard and don't see any reportage about online. So that could be some good economic news for a city that desperately needs some.

But that wasn't the point of the visit so there isn't much else to say about it. He's an exceedingly pleasant and down-to-earth man and I believe I'll be doing a formal interview for "The Strip" sometime soon.

Still, it gave me the opportunity to lap up the thrillingly Palm Springs-style architecture of the place. That shot above is the front from afar, but here it is from closer up and from the back patio...


Here's the front foyer:


...the main dining room...


...the bar and grill...


...and the part I found most physically stunning, the area outside the restrooms and leading, I think, to some card tables.


I don't recall where this escalator below leads to, but just look at the stonework, which is original circa 1967:


As I left, I noticed a couple of vanity license plates I couldn't resist snapping. The first, unmistakably, must belong to Thalia Dondero, a longtime Clark County commissioner and major-league political power broker profiled here.


Yep, that's my Jewfro in the shot.

And finally, I can't be sure but I think it's pretty safe to assume this Aston Martin convertible...



...belongs to the fellow with whom I lunched. Let's hope for his company's sake that that's not the only thing in Vegas that ever says "Echelon."

Boyd Halts Echelon Construction

In more depressing signs that this economic downturn is hitting Vegas harder than pretty much any other in more devastating and tangible ways that will take ever longer to recover from, Boyd Gaming today halted construction on its planned $4.8 billion resort on the old Stardust property because of, of course, financing problems. In the process, they seem to have lost their joint-venture partner, Morgan Hotel Group.

Here's the company's statement: "We have decided to delay construction of our Echelon project on the Las Vegas Strip due to the difficult environment surrounding today's capital markets and the challenging economic conditions that currently exist. We expect to resume construction when credit market conditions and the overall outlook for the economy improve."

That, they said, could take nine months to a year. It was originally due to open summer of 2010.

These photos below come from an email sent out by Deutsche Bank gaming stock analyst Bill Lerner. They were taken early this morning to show how far the project had come so far. The company had already invested $500 million, but Wall Street greeted the news that Boyd had realized its limits by running up the stock by more than 20 percent, its largest gain in eight years.





Unlike the shadenfraude of taking note of the struggles of the arrogant and misleading Trump folks, this really makes me sad. The Boyd folks are from top to bottom nice, helpful and humble people and I've been excited to see what they come up with over there.