Nevada Casino News Source: http://news.rgj.com
Ryan Randazzo
WEST WENDOVER -- Staring from the edge of town across the barren and seemingly endless Bonneville Salt Flats, West Wendover seems an unlikely location for millions in development. But the tiny town is building a new $6 million city complex and a new $19 million concert hall was scheduled to open Friday, bringing the songs of country star Tanya Tucker to a place where people used to have to drive 120 miles to Salt Lake for live entertainment.
Responsible for most of the building is Reno's Peppermill Casinos, which owns three of the five casinos in town, and has plans to build two more. Among the $115 million in projects by the casino group in the last three years was the concert hall, which city officials say will be a big change for this remote Nevada outpost.
"Frankly, the owners of the Peppermill are driving the development with the enormous investments they are making, which are having a ripple effect on the community," City Manager Chris Melville said.
Other than mining the salt flats for the fertilizer ingredient potash, the nearly 100-year-old town that began as a railroad water stop is nearly entirely built on tourism, and nearly all from Peppermill developments. The Holder Hospitality Group, which owns Silver Club in Sparks, owns one of the other casinos, and a group known as Generation 2000 owns the other.
Peppermill's 1,000-seat music hall has booked acts including Three Dog Night and Olivia Newton-John to follow Tucker.
"I know of a couple of people that indicated they bought tickets to every show being advertised," Melville said. "The concert hall is going to be a dramatic component to the community. It is one of those things we've been missing."
Peppermill's casinos get more than 99 percent of business from tourists, company officials say, primarily from Salt Lake City. West Wendover has about 5,500 residents, and the 2000 Census listed another 1,500 people living in Wendover, Utah, separated from the Nevada town only by a painted line on the street.
The casino expansions are growing the town so much, they've caused a reversal in the housing market, Melville said.
It is a stark contrast from January 2002, when two of the town's casinos entered bankruptcy. Peppermill bought one and Generation 2000 bought the other, and both companies completely remodeled the buildings.
"We had a lot of homes on the market the past few years, and in the last six to eight months those are gone, and it's now a sellers' market," Melville said.
"They are producing other community investments -- smaller, more diverse businesses -- like a dry cleaner's and tire store. Those things are coming down the pipeline now from the demand being created by the employee base created by the Peppermill."
The entire assessed value of the city was up 18.3 percent in the last fiscal year, Melville said, and the population's 15-year growth average is 5.6 percent.
Tourism focus
Besides the casinos, the towns have little enterprise.
There is a replica of an atomic bomb at the dinky Wendover airport, a tribute to the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima, which practiced over Wendover for its historic attack.
The final connection on the first transatlantic phone line was made in Wendover June 17, 1914.
Scenes for various movies, including "Con Air," were filmed there, and The Jailbird airplane the film's convicts flew still sits at the airport. The third "Pirates of the Caribbean" is scheduled to film scenes in town, and of course cast members will stay at Peppermill's tropical-themed Montego Bay, spokesman John Spillman said.
Otherwise tourism is West Wendover's trademark.
"Elko has been blessed with gold mining," Spillman said. "The only thing Wendover has been dealt is tourism. So we get all we can from it."
Despite the highly religious reputation of the state settled by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, population growth in Utah, which has no legal gambling, is building a better market for the Nevada casinos.
"Utah has a very young, very well-educated population," Spillman said. "There are a lot of folks that are not LDS moving in."
Gambling also is becoming more popular and acceptable, he said.
"It is not the sin that it used to be," he said.
Tourists happy
People who frequent West Wendover from Utah are happy for the getaway, and don't complain that the town isn't as overwhelming as Las Vegas or have the outdoor recreation available in Reno and Lake Tahoe.
About the only activity besides gambling in town is a round at Toana Vista Golf Course.
"I go here and to Disneyland, and there's not much gambling at Disneyland," said, Utah resident Gary Bybee, 67, as he practiced at the range at the Toana Vista.
Bybee said he takes about four trips a year to West Wendover, sometimes bringing his grandson for golf.
"My wife gambles and I golf," he said.
Other tourists are happy to shed the conservative mores of Utah, which also has tighter liquor laws than Nevada.
"It's so close to us," 26-year-old Landon Gobelman said while partying at Montego Bay on a recent work trip. "Just an hour and a half away, and the world's your oyster, sort of. Nevada is a place to party."
Other Utah revelers agreed it is easier to cut loose in Nevada.
"You can get well drinks," Gobelman's friend Shane Pinneo, 36, said. "And you know what, when you're in another state, you can forget where you're from."
More casinos
Peppermill is ready for more. They have secured land to build two more casinos in town, and officials say they will let the market's growth determine when they build. The town's limited work force is a primary concern for the company, which employs more than 2,100 people at its Wendover casinos.
"Labor is our scarcest resource," Spillman said.
To help recruit and keep employees, Peppermill leases more than 200 apartment units to employees at "modest" rates, provides housing for some managers, and offers English as a second language courses through their human resources department. Half the company's employees in West Wendover are Hispanic, Spillman said.
"We are trying to take Latinos and get them into front-line jobs," Spillman said. "Into the dealer and server jobs. That is where a lot of growth has come from, getting them to develop and grow into those jobs."
Other casinos invest
Generation 2000 also completely remodeled the Nugget to the tune of "tens of millions of dollars," during the past three years, and continues to improve that casino.
"We compete, but I respect (Peppermill) as a competitor," Generation 2000 Managing Partner David Ensign said. "We have a lot to do with the growth in the market as well. Peppermill's Montego Bay is a large part of why the market has grown, but we also are a big part of the resurgence of Wendover."
The new concert hall will help the Nugget continue to grow.
"They did a fabulous job with it," Ensign said recently after touring the facility. "I'm expecting great things from that events center. It is the one element we didn't have when compared to Reno, Tahoe and other venues."
Peppermill also charters a 737 to town about 350 days a year, bringing 150 gamblers on each from places as far away as Minneapolis, which officials say has boosted the casino business. Since Peppermill launched its service, a similar program in Elko has ceased operating.
"That is probably the crux of the increase," said Sean Mowray, who oversees the Red Garter hotel-casino as the eastern division president for Holder Hospitality Group.
Holder announced its purchase of Red Garter in May 2004, and since then has spent about $2 million upgrading the property, with plans for another $3 million in improvements, Mowray said.
Several other noncasino regional businesses have benefitted.
Le Bus charter company in Salt Lake City might have to change its schedule with the new concert hall operating. The company runs 22 to 35 buses a week to Peppermill's casinos.
"It's been steadily growing and increasing on a daily basis," General Manager Dennis Copyak said.
The company has been serving Peppermill casinos since the company bought the Silver Smith hotel-casino out of bankruptcy court in 2002 and converted it to Montego Bay.
"The numbers jumped 24 percent the first year, and 42 percent the next," Copyak said.
"Our buses don't get to town until 8 p.m., and that's when the concerts at the new hall start," he said. "If people start asking, we might have to change our program a little bit. That concert hall will be good for the whole Wasatch Front (western region of Utah)."
Serendipity florist's new owner owes the success of his first year in business to Peppermill, LeRoy Lutes said after he received the order for Tucker's flowers last week.
"The more business and more people they bring into town the more business for us," Lutes said, adding that his wife already had tickets for upcoming shows at the concert hall.
"I'm sure other businesses would join me in thanking them." |
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