Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Palms finds a new friend in Hooters

Heraea

Courtesy

The interior of Heraea, which opened at the Palms in February 2013 and closed in September. The space soon will be taken over by a Hooters.

Updated Sunday, May 31, 2015 | 1:01 p.m.

Notes from the VegasVille landscape, on the Strip and elsewhere.

■ When sports bar/nightclub Heraea opened four years ago at the Palms, the goal was to appeal to women with a sophisticated design and to men with sports played on big screens.

But the concept faltered, so much so that even parties hosted by a Las Vegas swingers’ club and musicians Zowie Bowie could not keep the club afloat. Heraea opened in February 2013 and closed in September.

What to do with such a star-crossed space? Call Hooters!

Set to open sometime this summer, likely in July, is a Hooters restaurant just off the casino floor in the former Heraea space. The spot originally was a Garduno’s Mexican restaurant.

When that popular eatery closed, a lot of locals worried the chic sports bar with a funky name would not be nearly as appetizing. They were right.

Thus, the Palms is returning to the tried-and-true. Pass the wings, will ya?

■ Speaking of new uses for space, there is preliminary but well-educated talk around town that MGM Grand is looking into building an entertainment venue with 450 to 500 seats to serve as a home to a resident rock act. The details are delicious, but it is too early to speak of what might be in store. This reportedly is a different venue than the Beacher’s Madhouse club and David Copperfield Theater, formerly Hollywood Theater.

It might happen, or not, but we can always … dream on.

■ The Siegel Group has snapped up more real estate in Las Vegas: two Crestwood Suites extended-stay properties — a 2.6-acre, 155-unit extended-stay resort on Las Vegas Boulevard just south of Bali Hai Golf Club, and a 2.6-acre parcel with 150 units on East Flamingo Road near Desert Springs Medical Center.

Stephen Siegel said he plans to perform some minor improvements on the properties, which were built in 2001 and are said to be in good condition. The rooms are fully furnished and outfitted with kitchens, popular among short-term visitors and business travelers.

The Crestwood Suites purchase brings the number of Siegel Suites properties in Nevada to 33, counting the company’s growing portfolio in Reno. Siegel has been buying up former hotel-casinos in the Biggest Little City in the World and refurbishing them into residences as the region prepares for the opening of the $5 billion Tesla Motors plant in 2018. Among those holdings are the Virginia Hotel, El Cortez and 248 On the River in downtown Reno.

What will be interesting to track is the company’s plans for Rumor, Artisan, the Resort at Mount Charleston and the old Crown Plaza property on Paradise Road just north of the Hard Rock Hotel. Redevelopment work on the latter property has halted, and the company has a relatively high volume of resort properties it has picked up over the past decade.

■ In February 2014, the Tropicana was abuzz over a new show and an impending retail project. The show was “Mamma Mia!” The mall was an outdoor promenade that would take over the hotel’s parcel on the southeast corner of the Strip and Tropicana Avenue. The idea was to snare the 100,000 pedestrians, by former CEO Alex Yeminidjian’s calculations, who walk from Excalibur to the west and MGM Grand to the north.

The mall was to open this year, joining the Linq across from Caesars Palace and the Grand Bazaar Shops at Bally’s, which also hope to draw tourists off the Strip. But eager talk about those shops at Tropicana subsided about the time “Mamma Mia!” closed in July.

Instead, the hotel’s new owner, Penn National, is enacting a two-phase plan over the next three to five years that will focus first on integrating the hotel’s player loyalty program with Penn’s nationwide program, Marquee Rewards. The second phase will be to fold in casino improvements, review all the restaurants and pursue that retail plan.

The proposal, however, is all under evaluation, and the mall targeted to open this year likely is at least two years in the making.

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