Las Vegas Sands Opens Its New Palazzo Resort

Now that Las Vegas Sands Chairman and Chief Executive Sheldon Adelson and his team have successfully opened the newest Strip resort, the next question becomes what will he do for an encore?

The company's 50-story, 3,000-suite Palazzo — now Nevada 's second-tallest building — opened its doors in late December, but it was Jan. 17-19 company officials chose for its grand opening with a fireworks display, the debut of a new retail component, the introduction of four celebrity chefs and their restaurants, and a grand opening concert featuring Motown great Diana Ross .

The company opted to maintain its strategy of opening the property a piece at a time. By the end of the grand opening celebration, the company still hadn't completed all of its rooms, more than half of the new retail at the Shoppes at Palazzo hadn't opened and the debut of the property's showcase entertainment offering, Broadway hit "Jersey Boys," was still at least two months away.

But for what they saw, industry watchers were impressed.

Bill Lerner, a gaming analyst with Deutsche Bank, said he expects that not only will Las Vegas Sands benefit from the opening of Palazzo, but so will the neighboring properties of Wynn Las Vegas and Treasure Island.

"The flow between the Venetian-Palazzo-Wynn cluster is finally smooth sans construction disruption, and we believe the combined benefit to Wynn and Las Vegas Sands will be greater than the individual parts," Lerner said. "MGM's TI should also benefit from the flow at the now northern ‘four corners’ on the Strip."

Lerner was impressed with the easy access to the property from the Strip and Sands Avenue with a split-level porte-cochere and an underground parking garage. He also liked the marble rotunda foyer and multifloor glasslike statute and fountain in the hotel lobby and the generous use of natural light. In the casino, Lerner was impressed with the 1,400 slot machines fitted with dark wood cabinets and gold trim.

Lerner praised Barneys New York, the anchor tenant of Palazzo's new retail unit, and he also thinks the space linking Palazzo with the Venetian was well done.

"The transitional space between Venetian and Palazzo is open and tranquil with natural light and running water," he said. "In addition to Barneys and retail access via escalator, it will seemingly have a quite special concept espresso bar, Espressamente Illy, which we suspect could be as popular as the Bellagio's Jean-Philippe Patisserie, which has a well-known chocolate fountain."

Sands officials have said their goal with the Palazzo is not to extend the Italian theme of the Venetian, but to introduce a higher level of luxury.

Palazzo's suites have several levels of luxury, from 650-square-foot units to 1,400 square feet.

The new tower is 639 feet tall, but the 50 floors are numbered higher because the building has no fourth, 13th or 14th floor — a nod to the superstitious nature of gamblers from both the United States and Asia.

The smaller suites have king-size beds, a sunken living room, a full-size sofa sleeper, remote-controlled Roman shades and curtains, two 32-inch flat-screen televisions, a 17-inch LCD television in the bathroom, three dual-line telephones, wireless high-speed Internet access and a personal fax-printer-copier.

The larger "Fortuna" suite adds a cordless telephone, DVD players built into the televisions and a refreshment center in addition to more than doubling the square footage.

The restaurants populating Palazzo also are designed with the upper crust in mind.

Celebrity Chefs Mario Batali, Emeril Lagasse, Wolfgang Puck and Charlie Trotter were on hand to introduce their respective properties, CarneVino, Table 10, CUT and Restaurant Charlie.

In addition, there's another Grand Lux Cafe near the casino (the Venetian also has one) and other restaurants include Dos Caminos, Jade, Lamborghini, Mainland, Morels French Steakhouse & Bistro, Sushisamba and Woo.

The 105,000-square-foot casino will be Las Vegas ' 16th largest, according to In Business Las Vegas' 2008 Book of Business Lists — but add that to the nearly same sized Venetian casino and the resort has more gaming floor space than any other venue.

Palazzo's slot machines have denominations ranging from a penny to $500. The casino's more than 120 games include single- and double-deck blackjack, roulette, craps, minibaccarat, Pai Gow poker, Pai Gow tiles, Let It Ride, Spanish 21 and three-card poker.

The entertainment offerings include a nightclub that opened before New Year's Eve and "Jersey Boys," which won't open until April.

Hip-hop artist Jay-Z opened the doors of his 40/40 Club early enough to take advantage of the college bowl season. Named for the exclusive group of baseball players who have had the power and speed to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in one season, the 40/40 Club doubles as a sports lounge by day and a nightclub in the late hours.

A special theater near the casino has been built for "Jersey Boys," the 2006 Tony Award-winning Best Musical about the rise of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.

Although there's still plenty of work to be done before Palazzo is completely finished, the Las Vegas Sands management team was asked what the company has in store next. After all, Adelson 's neighbor across the street, Steve Wynn , announced plans to build his Encore addition before Wynn Las Vegas opened its doors.

Executives said they have plenty to keep them busy — but most of it will occur thousands of miles away from the Strip.

In Asia, Las Vegas Sands is focused on building its multibillion-dollar Cotai Strip in Macau . The company opened the Venetian Macau last summer and additional resorts will open over the next four years as the company replicates the Las Vegas Strip overseas.

The company also has plans to develop a 1,300-acre resort on Hangqin Island at nearby Zhuhai in Guangdong province.

Farther south, Las Vegas Sands is working on Singapore 's first integrated resort, the Marina Bay Sands, which is scheduled to open next year.

Closer to home, the company is developing the Sands Bethworks in Bethlehem, Pa. , a 126-acre development at the old Bethlehem Steel mill that will include a 300-room hotel, 200,000 square feet of retail space, a 50,000-square-foot multipurpose center, an arts and cultural center, and a casino large enough to house 3,000 slot machines.

Las Vegas Sands also is in the running to develop resorts in Kansas and Massachusetts .

But what about Las Vegas ?

President and Chief Operating Officer William Weidner said plans are under way to develop 18 acres just south of a parking garage housing Wynn Las Vegas employees at the corner of Sands Avenue and Koval Lane.

"We haven't really done a lot of work on it, but we've gotten the approvals we've needed through the county," Weidner said of the facility, which he said would be similar in size and scope as the existing Sands Expo & Convention Center, a 1.8 million-square-foot facility that opened in 1990.

By having a second convention center, Weidner said, the company would be able to conduct a major show while another is setting up or packing up in the other building. The company also could host multiple shows at the same time.

Both tactics are used successfully by the Las Vegas Convention Center, which has 2.3 million square feet of space less than a mile away from the Sands Expo.

Does Las Vegas Sands have any ambitions to build another Las Vegas resort?

Adelson doesn't think so.

"Our basic fundamental marketing strategy is a convention-based strategy," Adelson said at a news conference. "If we see an opportunity to do a convention-based strategy, we believe there is more demand than supply.

"If I had the opportunity to get another location at a reasonable cost of land and put up another 4,000 or 5,000 rooms and make it convention-based, we'd look at it. But I don't see anything out there here in Las Vegas ."