VEGAS INC Magazine - Latest Las Vegas business news, features and commentaries about gaming, tourism, real estate and more
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/41290
HALL OF FAME HONOREE STEVE WYNN: VISIONARY We all really know who the smartest dude in town is. It's Steve Wynn. You know, the guy who acquired a sliver of land on the Las Vegas Strip in 1971 and parlayed it into one of the most respected casino operations in the world. The guy credited with forever changing the Las Vegas landscape with themed megaresorts when he opened the Mirage in 1989. The guy who plays Monopoly with real buildings. Yeah, that Steve Wynn. In order to acknowledge Wynn's status as Smartest Dude Emeritus, VEGAS INC feels he's deserving of his own category. We've installed him as the charter member of The Smartest Dude In Town Hall Of Fame. It's impossible to dispute that Wynn is smart because most of his decisions have been nothing short of golden, even when the popular sentiment was that he was going to lose his shirt. A few examples: • The Mirage was built with high-risk junk bonds and operating expenses were higher than at any casino in history. But the property was a huge success and established a standard that rivals could only dream of keeping up with. • He brought a relatively unknown entertainment experience called Cirque du Soleil to Treasure Island when it opened in 1993. Today, there are seven Cirque shows in Las Vegas that regularly sell out with another looming in the horizon. • He purchased, closed and imploded the Dunes. PILOT PROGRAM Hsieh closed a deal, to be announced mid-September, for a project that would fly small jets back and forth from the Bay Area to Las Vegas. about what his company's relocation will be able to do for downtown, but it's clear that city officials, including Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman and her predecessor and husband, Oscar Goodman, feel differently. The city needs more Tony Hsiehs and more Zappos.coms. Well, yeah. Carolyn Goodman calls the Zapponians a "creative class," which seems an apt description for people hired based at least partially on their weirdness quotient. "An infusion of young, creative people who really want to live and work here, that's a huge plus for the city," she says. We as a community in Southern Nevada have been so dependent on tourism. Those of us who live here, obviously need to support tourism as strongly as we can, but we also need a diverse economic | 5 SEPTEMBER 2011 | community." Goodman isn't shy about saying she thinks that Zappos.com, as well as the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health and the long-awaited Smith Center for the Performing Arts, will serve to stimulate downtown's economy and spur diversification throughout, not only her city, but all of Clark County. With the Nevada Development Authority doing little to spur economic development and the Las Vegas Conventions and Visitors Authority continuing to market our city as solely an adult playground (what happens here, stays here), Las Vegas could use a capitalist savior or two. And it just may have one in Tony Hsieh. Internet start-up and Las Vegas aren't words that typically go together. But Hsieh's vision in The public decried the loss of what had been a Strip icon for nearly four decades. But Wynn said he'd build something better. The end result: Bellagio, arguably Las Vegas' favorite resort property. • When MGM Grand Inc. acquired Mirage Resorts Inc. in 2000, the public questioned why Wynn would give up such plum properties as the Golden Nugget, Mirage, Treasure Island and Bellagio. But it was all part of a bigger plan to acquire another classic property, the Desert Inn, which he said he was giving to his wife as a birthday giſt. Out of the implosion of the Desert Inn came what is now Wynn Las Vegas and Encore. • One of Wynn's most expensive gambles was to position himself as one of the players in Macau. Wynn Macau opened in 2006 and is acknowledged as one of the classiest properties in the market. He followed up with Encore at Wynn Macau in 2010 and he's expected break ground soon on a property near the rapidly developing Cotai Strip. And that's how one gets to be inducted into The Smartest Dude In Town Hall Of Fame. A no-brainer if ever there was one. —Richard N. Velotta 25