VEGAS INC Magazine - Latest Las Vegas business news, features and commentaries about gaming, tourism, real estate and more
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/101717
the basics Pick 'Em Get smart Power tweets Power Lunch The Numbers Sin City Media Overheard talking points Done Deal the numbers Chatter We hear .com Buy high Sell low 208 VEGASINCmag Executive class YOUR AD HERE Read this! Mike Smith is an award-winning editorial cartoonist featured daily in the Las Vegas Sun. Smith's work also is distributed nationally by King Features Syndicate. See archives of his work at lasvegassun.com/smithsworld. The Pitch is back American dream Smith's world Moonlighting NOW SERVING LAS VEGAS Vegas then ? ? ? ? ? ! The innovator VEGASinc2021 95 Gate keeper The number of acres a Southern California residential $ developer bought in North Las Vegas. SunCal acquired a property near North Decatur Boulevard and Elkhorn Road for $19.8 million. FortuneCookie Grilled The Survivor 460 The number of events catered by Superior Event Services in December (as of Dec. 22). More companies hosted holiday parties this year than in recent past years, allowing the company to more than double its business. 68,000 The estimated number of Nevadans suffering from a pathological gambling problem, according to the Advisory Committee on Problem Gambling. The committee wants Gov. Brian Sandoval to increase the state's quarterly slot-machine tax from $1 to $2 per machine to help fund programs to treat problem gamblers. $119 million The amount Ladder Capital, a New York investment firm, paid to buy 470 units in CityCenter's Veer Towers. Now, 98 percent of the units in the 37-floor luxury high rises have been sold. Only 11 penthouse suites remain available. 147,600 The estimated number of unemployed workers in Nevada in November. The number dropped from 156,000 in October, causing Nevada's unemployment rate to fall to 10.8 percent — the lowest it has been in more than three years. The number of jobless workers in the state, however, still is higher than the national average of 7.7 percent. 13 The number of years comedian-illusionist Johnathan Szeles, known as the Amazing Johnathan, has performed in Las Vegas. Szeles announced Dec. 21 through his Facebook page that his run in the city has ended. CORRECTION Because of a production error, contact information for the Westmark Group Environmental Engineering & Consulting appeared incorrectly in the Book of Business Lists. Westmark is located at 2430 N. Decatur Blvd., Ste. 140, Las Vegas, 89118. Its phone number is 839-2960, and its website is WestmarkGroup.net | 7 JANUARY 2013 20130107_VI21_F.indd 21 | Reader comments We want to hear from you. Visit vegasinc.com to post your opinion. On Rick Velotta's Dec. 21 vegasinc.com story about a party train that will bring tourists from Southern California to Las Vegas ("X Train aims to make a party of the Southern California-Las Vegas trip"): I have my doubts that this will work, as $100 per person is pretty expensive. I just checked airfare prices for Long Beach to Las Vegas (Long Beach is located near Fullerton). I could get a round-trip ticket for $98. I will get there significantly faster and at half the price. Sure, I'll have to take a cab/ shuttle to the Strip, but I'd have to do exactly the same thing if I was let off at the Plaza. The train also doesn't make sense with groups of people. For instance, four bachelors will have to pay $800 total to get back and forth from Las Vegas. If they pile into a car and each chip in for gas, they could do the trip in $50-$75 total and still have a car to get around. — Feldling (Eddie Gaul) Using that theory, Vegas should be empty of tourists except those who stay at Motel 6 and Travel Lodge. People who live and work in Vegas know that these cheap places are not filled with tourists. The $300-a-night rooms are filled with tourists. And the Strip (even downtown) has more $300 rooms that are full, than the $39 rooms. Not everyone who comes to Vegas is the bargain basement traveler. — vegasmark (Mark Anthony) This company is really insane for $100 per one- way trip. Best thing to do is partner with Boyd Group and make the stop at Main Street Station. Making this arrangement could lessen the price to $25 per person each way, packaging room deals with three downtown properties (Main Street Station, Fremont and Californian), and help expand Zappos' influence. The money is never the trip, but the destination stations they build in the process. The airlines don't make the cash. They are losing it and cutting costs on everything. The airports are the places that make the most money with the $4 bottled water. — Vegasvampire (Jay Relph) On Eli Segall's Dec. 21 vegasinc.com story about SunCal, a Southern California residential developer that acquired a large chunk of land in North Las Vegas for $19.8 million ("Residential developer buys 208 acres in North Las Vegas"): There is that much empty land in that area? It was crowded, and built up four years ago. — Det_ Munch This will fill in a huge part of open land heading to the Clark County Shooting Range. Please design larger lots and do not make it look like Henderson, with miles of ugly strip centers congesting traffic. Planning in the valley (except Summerlin) has been in short supply, and North Las Vegas money woes should not be allowed to embolden developers to throw up anything. — newnvres (Ben Lambert) 21 1/3/13 2:25:12 PM