Sahara Closing

[Denise Su]

I just read an article on the MSN website that the Sahara is closing on May 16. It said the owners have no plans for the property yet. What a shame that another Rat Pack era casino closes!

MGM Resorts International is helping to find jobs for the workers and room for those who have reservation after May 16.

Damm there goes another Las Vegas Landmark!!

[annie]

> I just read an article on the MSN website that the Sahara is closing on May 16.

Oh really?

Ya know, they've spent an awful lot of effort denying rumors to this effect over the past couple of months!

> What a shame that another Rat Pack era casino closes!

Agree! Sahara was legacy classic Vegas all the way!

I stayed there for DLV 2000 thru DLV 2006 and enjoyed it each time. The main reason I switched to more centrally located casinos is that I found I enjoy DLV much better when I don't rent a car. Nice to have other places within an easy walk.

Oh well ...

[External Poster]

This posting is from: Katherine
----------

That's what happens when you take the casino's out of the hands of the
criminals, ie. "Mobsters", and put it in the hands of reputable "Major
Corporations"

Katherine1951 (cd.com)

----------
(This posting was entered by Katherine, an external user of MyDLV.)

[annie]

Here's the LVRJ article which gives details ...

http://www.lvrj.com/business/sahara-hot ... 00628.html

[External Poster]

This posting is from: Mary Beth
----------

What I find saddest about this is that the Strip continues to price out
the middle- and lower- income traveler. All of the new properties on the
Strip are just concerned with the "whales" (i.e. the ultra-big spenders)
and soon the under-$100 a night room will disappear completely.

Hope everyone has a great DLV; I'll be thinking of you.

Best,

Mary Beth

----------
(This posting was entered by Mary Beth, an external user of MyDLV.)

[annie]

> All of the new properties on the Strip are just concerned with the
> "whales" (i.e. the ultra-big spenders)

I do agree that there's a glut on the highest of the high end.

Those so-called mega-resorts with the $200 rooms and the $100 meals in the eponymous absentee celebrity chef gourmet room and the oh-so-trendy velvet rope club.

> and soon the under-$100 a night room will disappear completely.

I don't see this happening at all. The growth on the highest of the high end has driven down room prices at such places as Bally's, MGM, Monte Carlo, Treasure Island, Mirage to where they are quite affordable. This year I'm getting a very nice room for actually less than what I paid for a ROTH room at the Riviera back at DLV 1997!

What the Sahara should have done was to follow the lead of aging places such as the Plaza and the Tropicana and used the slowdown to do some serious clean-up fix-up work. I understand that the Plaza is renovating some rooms with the furniture that was intended for the Fontanbleu (a stalled mega-fiasco project).

Instead the short-sighted Sahara management went down an endless-loop circle-the-drain process of cutbacks followed by declining business followed by more cutbacks followed by far less business followed by yet more cutbacks ...

[External Poster]

This posting is from: Cynthia Phillips
----------

I thought I was reading The Wall Street Journal there for a minute; are
you sure you don't work for Newsweek or Time or The RJ or some such,
Annie? Did Sahara experience a meltdown or was it just tanking?
swirling, shrinking, stretching, and distorting down the nearest black
hole? And will it reemerge again somewhere on the far side of the
universe?

I love it when techies go viral and start waxing poetic.

----------
(This posting was entered by Cynthia Phillips, an external user of MyDLV.)

[bobbiemlv]

It might be of some interest that the Sahara was built and owned originally by real estate developer Del Webb, whose legacy lives on in Las Vegas with the Sun City housing developments. I've been in Vegas since the mid 60's and as far as I know, Webb was one of the very few that did not have any ties to the mob. I have known a few that were.

[annie]

> as far as I know, Webb was one of the very few that did not have any
> ties to the mob. I have known a few that were.

The way I heard the story of the early days of the Sahara, yes, Webb was the developer and builder, and years later the owner, but the $$$ for the project came from, and the business end was managed by Milton Prell and his "investors", which included a few wise guys.

IIRC, Prell continuously denied that his associates had any organized crime connection, although circumstantial evidence would tend to indicate otherwise.

As time goes on, it seems like these squeaky-clean casino frontmen such as Prell, Glick, and Gaughan did have ties to the underworld. (LOL, I don't think Glick ever fooled anyone WRT who was really behind the Stardust.)

[bobbiemlv]

I stand corrected. The property on which the Sahara was built and housed the original Bingo Palace in 1947, until Milton Prell bought & demolished it in order to build the Sahara (Del Webb was the contractor), in 1952. It was subsequently sold to Webb in 1961 who had it for 21 yrs.
There was never any proof that Prell had ties to organized crime although most of Las Vegas was run by Jewish "businessmen" from Chicago and Cleveland, not withstanding Bugsy Siegel & Meyer Lansky who built the Flamingo.


I worked at the Sahara for 9yrs in the 80's.
I also worked for the Dunes Hotel, which closed on my birthday, Jan. 26, 1993....That's another story.