Vol. 4, No. 2, February 2008
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The First in its Class
Las Vegas Sands unveils luxurious new Palazzo
Being on the leading edge of industry trends is something that sets Las Vegas Sands apart from other operators, said the company’s President and Chief Operating Officer Bill Weidner.
“One of the things we take a lot of pride in as a management team is doing things that are different and that set trends,” he said. “Copy is the sincerest form of flattery, and with $20 billion to $30 billion in large-scale projects like this coming down the line, we consider ourselves to be the first to develop these kinds of buildings.
“This marks the beginning of the meta resort era that will take Las Vegas to the next level, and we’re kind of the first ones on that wave.”
The idea of building such an expansive casino campus—between the Palazzo and Venetian Las Vegas Sands has 7,000 hotel rooms and 200,000 square feet of casino space—is actually about 13 years old, according to Brad Stone, executive vice president of Las Vegas Sands.
When he, along with Weidner, Venetian and Palazzo President Rob Goldstein and Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson, first started master-planning the property in late 1995, the goal was to get as many hotel rooms as possible at the intersection of Sands Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard.
“The idea was to present two unique destination resorts to the consumer with a different front of the house and a different look, as well as to provide multiple experiences,” Stone said. “We never wanted Palazzo to be just an extension of the Venetian, we wanted it to stand on its own with its own character and look.
“Palazzo is about luxury. People come to Las Vegas to see things they can’t see anywhere else, and we feel the Palazzo delivers on that.”
The marriage of affluence and drama were key to Adelson. The Venetian is a romantic property, as he described it, while the Palazzo stands as an exciting ode to unabashed opulence. The reason for such is
quite simple, Adelson said. He used a story about a wealthy man from Canada—who said if he lost all his money, the last thing to go would be his private airplane—to explain the reason his company caters to the wealthy.
With the economy slowing down, and some of the more dire prognosticators saying a recession is imminent, Adelson believes his properties will be insulated from the financial troubles of the hoi polloi.
“We didn’t want to focus on the mid-market because we felt the mid-market was so vulnerable to economic swings,” Adelson explained. “We wanted to stay at the high-end because people who have money always have money.
“There are certain luxuries in life that people who can afford luxuries don’t want to be without, and one of those is when people want to go away and have a nice weekend, whether it’s to celebrate something or just to get away, they want to live luxuriously. That’s who we built this for.”
For Weidner and Adelson, the project is as much a statement about the future of Las Vegas, as it is about Las Vegas Sands itself.
“Las Vegas is the entertainment capital of the world, so it is the statement of all statements that this is the largest resort ever built,” Weidner said. “In a town that has the largest resorts in the world, to be the largest of the largest is really interesting.
“Las Vegas is our home base. As much as we are building in places like Asia and as much as we’re developing in places like Singapore, it’s still wonderful to come home and provide this kind of entertainment for not only the American people, but for people across the world.”
Adelson used fewer words to get to a similar conclusion.
“Not all casino operators are equal,” he said. “To be nicer, there’s a saying that all people are created equal, but some are more equal than others… Las Vegas Sands is more equal than others.”
Luxuries for the Few
With a hotel tower boasting nothing but suites—starting at $199 a night—more celebrity-chef-headed and high-end restaurants than any other property in town, a one-of-a-kind spa, and a high-end retail component in which only the biggest of the big spenders could afford to go window shopping, the Palazzo is truly in a league of its own.
On the dining side, Goldstein has added restaurants including CarneVino by Mario Batali, Table 10 by Emeril Lagasse, CUT by Wolfgang Puck and Restaurant Charlie by Charlie Trotter to an already impressive lineup including Dos Caminos, the Grand Luxe Café, Jade, Prime Blue Grille and SUSHISAMBA, to name a few. Between Palazzo and the Venetian, Goldstein said there is now dining for 10,000 people at a total of 29 restaurants. And next year, Las Vegas Sands is predicting $7 million in restaurant sales alone.
Those looking for an extravagant respite can visit the 134,000-square-foot Canyon Ranch Spa to take a fitness class, meet with a nutritionist, or relax with a massage and facial. The Canyon Ranch Spa will also bring the first European-style suite of thermal spas, tubs and bathing experiences to the U.S. with Aquavana.
For entertainment, Palazzo is tapping into proven commodities from New York, including the Broadway production and 2006 Tony Award-winning Jersey Boys and 40/40 Club, a sports bar and lounge fronted by one of hip hops biggest moguls, Jay-Z. And the shopping experience (see “Calling Big Spenders” on page 31) will also be one-of-a-kind.
When it all comes together, Goldstein describes it as “over the top, yet sophisticated.”
And, it’s something that Weidner says is indicative of a change in the traditional business model for Las Vegas, something that has been become more and more evident in recent years: non-gaming amenities are becoming increasingly important to the bottom line.
“It’s almost completely changed the other way from those things that the initial developers of casinos here in Las Vegas considered to be distractions—things like shopping and even televisions in the hotel rooms,” he said. “The idea of developing experiences around the casino, reasons to come that are not gaming oriented, then gaming becomes just a part of the overall experience. Instead of being gaming-centric, it becomes resort-centric, or experience-centric.”
