Station, Boyd trade land moves

By Liz Benston

Saturday, July 26, 2008 | 2 a.m.

As Station Casinos and Boyd Gaming seek approval for neighboring casinos in North Las Vegas, they will continue one of the industry’s great rivalries.

Next month, Boyd faces a final vote before the City Council on its Park Highlands casino; the city’s Planning Commission will consider Station’s petition for gaming zoning across the street.

If approved, the projects would be closer to each other than any two separately owned casinos in the Las Vegas Valley’s outlying suburbs. But it wouldn’t be the first time the competitors have owned land within a stone’s throw of each other.

Though the North Las Vegas projects wouldn’t be built for years, they are the latest front in a complex competition between Station and No. 2 locals operator Boyd.

The companies’ moves have often resembled a chess match, with each taking turns on the offensive, buying land or striking management deals to dominate a region. Station, the more aggressive of the two, has also used land purchases defensively, to block or control competition.

Station has used a state law aimed at curbing future neighborhood casinos to its advantage, and the law has foiled Boyd’s attempts to gain a foothold in rapidly developing parts of the valley.

For a time the companies were content to stick to their corners, avoiding the same parts of the valley. But the sparring grew heated in 2000, when southwest Las Vegas residents fought the Clark County Commission’s approval of a proposed Boyd casino site at Flamingo Road and Grand Canyon Drive.

The residents used a 1997 law that imposed distance requirements between a casino and residential neighborhoods to overturn the commission’s vote and kill the plan.

Boyd accused Station of fueling the residents’ opposition behind the scenes.

Station, which had a year earlier purchased land about three miles away, at the Las Vegas Beltway and Durango Drive, denied involvement. (Station recently announced plans to start construction next year on Durango Station, part of the Rhodes Ranch residential community, for an expected opening in 2011.)

A Station lobbyist later admitted creating an anonymous mailer sent to voters portraying then-Clark County Commissioner Lance Malone as untrustworthy. Malone had initially opposed the Boyd casino but later voted for it.

The incident opened a rift between the two companies that some insiders say hasn’t entirely healed.

Station had for years bought property throughout the valley for potential casinos, signaling the company’s focus would be on this area.

Boyd, meanwhile, had been building riverboat casinos in the Midwest and had not aggressively bought valley real estate.

During the drafting of the 1997 law, Station Casinos had lawmakers exempt land it owned prior to the bill’s passage, cementing its dominance in Las Vegas. It would be virtually impossible for future casinos to be built in established neighborhoods, except on parcels Station owned.

Boyd was at a disadvantage. The undeveloped edges of the valley, such as the open desert at the northern edge of North Las Vegas, became the key battlegrounds for the two locals gaming titans.

Thwarted in its attempt to build a locals casino empire from the ground up in the fast-growing suburbs, Boyd acquired a locals casino empire.

Potential buyers had over the years courted Coast Casinos, a lean, well-run company with a strong following among local gamblers. But Coast picked Boyd, a testament to the long-term friendship between the top executives’ fathers, Jackie Gaughan and Sam Boyd, Las Vegas casino pioneers who were one-time partners.

Boyd’s purchase of Coast in 2004 established its position as the No. 2 locals casino operator in the Las Vegas Valley and a formidable competitor to Station, rather than a distant second.

Station was also busy in 2004, selling land. It sold 27 acres near its Boulder Station and across the highway from Boyd’s Sam’s Town in the east valley to Wal-Mart, which built a store there. Farther south on Boulder Highway, Station began leasing 68 acres in 2000, then bought the land. Station stripped the property of its gaming zoning and sold it to homebuilder D.R. Horton.

Station execs had set their sights on the west valley for growth but weren’t about to abandon buying opportunities throughout the valley to continue their dominance.

In 2004 Station purchased the Magic Star and shuttered Castaways casinos along Boulder Highway and the small Gold Rush casino in Henderson. Station had bought the Wildfire casino in North Las Vegas the year before.

After Aliante Station, which opens Nov. 11, the company will begin work on Durango Station, though the company might decide to start developing one of its other Las Vegas casino sites in the interim. (Aliante Station is a partnership with landowner American Nevada Corp., which developed the surrounding Aliante neighborhood and is controlled by the Greenspun family, which owns the Las Vegas Sun.)

Meanwhile, Boyd is considering building a casino in a Henderson master-planned community. Under a plan that has yet to be finalized, Boyd would buy 42 acres east of Boulder Highway, between Water Street and Warm Springs Road, for a casino, replacing its nearby Jokers Wild casino, which would be demolished.

Not surprisingly, Station owns land not far from this site, in the under-development Inspirada community in Henderson, south of Interstate 215 and the Henderson Executive Airport.

As development continues and available casino land in the suburbs dwindles, the rivals will bump heads more often and compete more fiercely for customers.

One of those parcels is at Cactus Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard, a few blocks south of South Point, a property Boyd sold to Coast Casinos founder Michael Gaughan when Gaughan exited the combined company in 2006.

The alternative is to build next to one another along Las Vegas Boulevard and Boulder Highway, gaming corridors that were intended to accommodate chock-a-block development and where distance requirements don’t apply.