Lost revenue will be major cost of hotel-casino fire

Smoke damage of the type afflicting the hotel portion of the Gold Strike Inn & Casino near Boulder City can be expensive to clean, but does not take excessively long, experts say.

And the greatest portion of that cost appears to be due to lost room revenues and labor expenses.

When fire damaged three floors of the Las Vegas Hilton earlier this year, the smoke and water-damaged portions were re-opened within a week, said Kathy Shepard, a Hilton spokeswoman.

"We turned it around, had all the damage cleaned up, within a couple of days," Shepard said.

The hardware costs -- replacing carpets, cleaning walls and painting where necessary -- accounted for only a small portion of the cleanup's $300,000 cost, she said. The majority of that cost was due to lost revenue and overtime paid to the housekeeping staff that did the majority of the work.

Chris Payan, a manager at fire damage company Payan Builders Inc., said the cost of repairing smoke damage depends on the extent of the damage, but usually runs about $1 per square foot.

In a large hotel like the Gold Strike, Payan said, the work can be done quickly.

"Usually with a lot of rooms you can go in there and blow them out," he said.

David Belding, a partner in the Gold Strike, said smoke damage to the resort's hotel tower is the least of his worries.

"That would certainly not be a major cost of getting open again," Belding said.

But even though the smoke damage will be fixed quickly, the Gold Strike's hotel will not reopen until the casino is re-built, Belding said, which could take up to a year.

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