Vol. 3, No. 2 February 2007
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Terry Downey
Vice President and General Manager,Santa Fe Station
Terry Downey, Santa Fe’s vice president and general manager, has guided the property and its team members throughout the expansion, which has brought a new buffet, race and sports book, 14,000 square feet of new meeting space, and will bring an expanded poker room and oyster bar later this summer.
Though currently the farthest casino from McCarran International Airport, the Santa Fe is located in one of the faster growing areas of the Las Vegas Valley. And it is this rapid growth, as much as anything else, that prompted Station to launch such an ambitious expansion project.
Downey spoke with Casino Connection Editor Roger Gros and Managing Editor Greg Jones about the expansion and the changing locals market in Las Vegas.
Casino Connection: You’ve recently completed a $130 million expansion here at Santa Fe Station, what were the different amenities added as part of this expansion?
Downey: It’s really been interesting, and we’re not quite complete yet. What we have online so far is the Feast Buffet, the new race and sports book, Turf Grill and about 14,000 square feet of new meeting space. It’s really been incredible. We started opening things in December, and the response has just been unbelievable.
There’s a poker room under construction right now. The poker room that we currently have is nine tables. We’re getting a brand new poker room with 14 tables, and we can go up from there as we grow. We’re expecting to open that the first week of April and at the same time the present poker room will close down and we’ll build a Tides oyster bar in that space.
So, early April we’ll start on Tides, and we’ll also start on the new center bar and both of those are scheduled to open the first week of September. The center bar will really be the newest evolution from the Drop Bar at GVR (Green Valley Ranch) and Lucky Bar at Red Rock, and this one is really quite amazing. The oyster bar will also be similar to the Tides in GVR and Red Rock. Also in April we’re looking to open a Salt Lick BBQ. There’s one in town currently at Red Rock, it’s gone over well up there and the neighborhood where we’re situated is really ideal for another one.
There’s a lot of similarities between Green Valley Ranch and Red Rock, and lot of the things at those properties are being brought here. Is that intentional, is that something where it’s been successful at those two places and it makes sense to bring it here?
It makes sense to put it in here and I think as the company grows it’s the natural evolution of things. We’re master planning things as we go along and it makes sense to keep up on the bar.
What were the changes made at the race and sports book and how have those been received?
The old race and sports book at the Santa Fe was a throwback to the old days, low ceiling, dark, paper wall boards, and I think the largest screen was 42 inches. We had one large-screen projector. When Red Rock was under construction, we knew the race and sports book we were putting in there was going to knock the industry on its ear a little bit, and at the same time they were working on the expansion at GVR so they took that a little bit further with GVR, and we had a chance to watch it evolve into what we have here. We have five big screens instead of three. It’s much more open. The response has just been incredible.
This isn’t part of current expansion, but Chrome nightclub has been very successful. Explain the evolution of that and what you use it for.
Look at what we’ve done in the company. The Rail Head at Boulder Station has been very successful with different name acts in there every week, plus house bands. The natural evolution was to have a similar venue up here. We actually share some acts with them; the blues series is here Wednesday night, and there on Thursday. On weekends we have house bands, we have Purple Rain, a Prince tribute band, and then what we usually do is have free concerts before Purple Rain starts. We’ve been really successful with both jazz and country. It’s really exciting. We’re starting to ramp it up. While under construction, we were limited in parking, so we cut back on entertainment. Now that we’re able to really come out it’s starting to open up.
Sharing acts with Railhead, is that something that will continue to bring people up here?
Absolutely. The response is incredible. We’ve sold out… we really started getting into the big concerts four or five months ago and we’ve virtually sold out every concert.
Any larger venue as part of expansion project?
We’re actually looking down the road with 14,000 square feet in meeting space, to bringing in some bigger acts. It’s a little bit of this, a little bit of that; what will go there, what will go in Chrome.
You mentioned limited parking during construction, how did you keep this from becoming an inconvenience for your customers and lowering business?
I think every project has a bit of its own specific problems that come with it. Being a little bit land locked on all sides by Rancho and the highway and Lone Mountain Road, there was no where else to go for the parking. Our team members were absolutely incredible. The old Century Theater complex across the street, team members parked over there and we bused them back and forth every day. There are things you can do to aliviate the problem, which I think we did. If you look at our business levels throughout the construction, they were constantly high. The majority of our database was pretty much stable.
Was the driving force behind this expansion some of the competition coming into the area? When you see Suncoast and Rampart putting first class facilities out there, and even nearby when Red Rock came in, is this something that really drove the expansion project?
Yes and no. The competition obviously, we feel we have a pretty good foothold and we want to maintain and grow that, but the driving force really was the growth of this part of the city. Going north on 95 and further out that way, there virtually is no competition out that way. We’re expanding to be able to handle the growth that’s naturally going to come here.
Our guest expectations rise as new properties are built. Both of the expansions at the Santa Fe have kept us very current.
In addition to using the space for concerts, what was the inspiration to expand your available meeting space? Are you doing a lot of business in conventions, and are these local bookings or groups from out of town?
We do a really good meeting business and we really only had two small conference rooms and saw the need to build bigger meeting spaces. The advance bookings have been absolutely incredible. We started booking when we knew we would be opening in January. Our first event was a big player’s party New Year’s Eve and we created bookings out of that party.
While we do a little business from out of town, there’s a huge market out here for local bookings here. We’re predominantly a locals property. We have to be the farthest casino from McCarran. I look at this property and it pretty much reminds me of the epitome of what a locals property should be, and is.
We have 200 rooms. It’s serving our needs right now, and we run a pretty incredible year-round occupancy. Knowing how all the properties are master-planned, I would guess the plan includes another tower, but it wouldn’t be imminent at this point in time.
The locals market has been changing. Station will have Aliante, and Coast Casinos and Michael Gaughan have once again upped again the quality of local casinos. Do you think that will continue to ramp up the desire for quality locals casinos?
I think it will. It may be a while before we see anything like Red Rock, if ever. Red Rock you could drop right in the middle of the Strip and it would be in that league. I think a Green Valley style property is absolutely what we’ll see built, at that level.
In speaking with your poker room manager, he mentioned he was a little nervous that he would be able to get enough players out here. Do you think that will be an issue?
There is an incredible demand for poker. When I left last night, I left at 7:30 and all nine tables were full. I think that kind of speaks to where we’re going to go. And that was a Monday night.
I think we’ll grow into these 14 tables.
Do you track your customer base in terms of visitation to other Station casinos? Is there any research into what other properties they visit through the Boarding Pass?
Sure. The typical Santa Fe customer goes to Red Rock, and Texas Station gets visits, too.
It’s really easy to track who predominantly plays where. The great thing, the way the company has moved forward with the Boarding Pass and the database in general, a Santa Fe customer can feel very comfortable at Red Rock or Texas Station. The service levels are so similar and expectations are the same.
Do you know how many employees you have from the pre-Station days?
Right before the expansion, before we did the hiring for the expansion, we were going to put up a five-year wall and at the time we had a little over 1,000 people, and over half of our team members have been with the property for at least five years. There’s tremendous loyalty between the team members and the company.
How have they reacted to the expansion?
They’re as in awe of it as the customers are. They’re very pleased the company has decided to keep improving their current properties as well as building new ones and it’s just part of the credibility the company has with its team members.
