Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

Like desert sands, Las Vegas resorts continue to shift

Las Vegas Strip Aerial View: 2/12/16

Tom Donoghue / DonoghuePhotography.com

An aerial view of the Las Vegas Strip on Friday, Feb. 12, 2016, aboard a Maverick helicopter.

Strip resorts of the future will probably look quite different. The casino floor, for one thing, will most likely be smaller. But Las Vegas and its huge integrated resorts should continue to succeed, if only because they are so good at listening to their customers.

Those were among the observations of a handful of casino design experts who gathered recently to discuss the role architecture and design have played in transforming Las Vegas from a gambling-based, desert curiosity into an iconic tourist destination.

Almost nobody doubts significant changes are coming to Las Vegas, which is seeing a trend toward younger visitors and, as panelists noted, a continued shift away from a sole focus on gambling.

“The implications of the changes in gaming on casino layout are huge,” said Ethan Nelson, president of Steelman Partners. “First of all, we’re right in middle of it, and I don’t think we know the answer just yet with existing properties. But the change we’ll see in any new properties will be profound. It’s going to have huge implications for how we lay out spaces.”

Nelson was one of five on the panel Sunday night at UNLV's Lied Library.

Also on hand were John Acres, founder of Acres 4.0; Leonard Bergman, CEO of Bergman Walls and Associates; Don Brinkerhoff, founder and CEO of Lifescapes International; and Alex Woogmaster, the creative director of Wynn Design and Development.

The panelists noted that Las Vegas has an amazing track record of creating desire that people didn’t know they had and delivering on tourist expectations. Strip resorts allow visitors to forget their day-to-day lives and imagine themselves as high rollers, if only for a weekend.

Jay Sarno started it with Caesars Palace, and the concept was fully realized when Steve Wynn revitalized the Strip by building the Mirage and Bellagio, the panelists said.

“Most people work hard their whole lives without being recognized for it,” Acres said. “They want to escape to someplace where they can be recognized. When Sarno built Caesars, he designed it to be the most decadent place ... But Steve brought scale to the thing.”

The Strip also delivers on the more mundane needs of its visitors. Drugstores now have some of the largest storefronts and are among the most successful businesses on Las Vegas Boulevard, the panelists noted.

“Even the Walgreens is the highest-grossing Walgreens,” Bergman said. “We are good at targeting different markets. We like talking about the grand and glorious, but there’s a lot more to Las Vegas than that.”

The addition of nightclubs, dayclubs, sports stadiums and places like the MGM Grand’s Level Up — an adult arcade lounge — is evidence of Las Vegas’ ability to shift gears, the panelists said.

“There is something special about Las Vegas, and what we’re seeing is a morphing away from pure gambling to other experiences,” Acres said. “As someone who built a career in gambling, I’m sad about it. But it’s also exciting.”