Caesars Palace has been operating inside and outside its architectural walls for the past five years as a project to transform tired themed properties into luxury resorts takes shape. The last of those walls collapsed when Harrods Entertainment opened the 949-room Augustus Hotel Tower on the corner of Flamingo Road and Las Vegas Boulevard. The tower, which also includes a 24-hour cafe, two retail stores, a VIP lounge, and three wedding chapels to replace an indoor chapel, suspended a process that began in 2003 when its former owner Caesars Entertainment opened the 4,100-seat Colosseum Theater.
Since then, the building has added a new convention area, two celebrity chef’s restaurants, and an additional casino space with a bar, retail, and nightclub. The casino is undergoing work to add a poker room and other table games, and a hotel spa and Guy Savoy restaurant (named after a Michelin three-star chef with the same name in Paris) will open in Augustus Tower a few months from now. Harrah’s hired 600 people to build the new tower. The rooms are designed to compete with the best suites in Las Vegas over the best suites provided by Caesars. It’s a bold move for properties whose status has been weakened by new resorts such as Bellagio, Venice, and, most recently, Wynn Las Vegas.
“I think they will compete very well with the new wave of hotel rooms coming to Las Vegas,” said Gary Selesner, who was recently appointed chairman of Caesars Palace. “I think this size and large space is very competitive, but I think this new, standout, modern decoration, with a new interpretation of what it’s like to be Caesars Palace using a designer, offers us a very competitive cabin product.”
The $289 million tower provides Caesars with 40 percent more rooms. Caesars executives said it’s a long-needed expansion given Las Vegas’ recent rapid tourism growth and competition with major resorts that offer more rooms. The upgrade comes amid continued speculation that Haras, which acquired Caesars Entertainment in June, will eventually shrink its high-payer business at its flagship property, favoring the company’s known mid-payment business.
Instead of maintaining Caesars’ high-end client business, Selesner said the resort’s high-end client base has grown under Hara. The company has already begun the process of upgrading its existing high-end suites across the property. Rooms at the Palace Tower, the latest tower to open before Augustus, will also be upgraded to fit the latest basic suites in the coming months, Selesner said. 실시간 바카라사이트
The new tower’s rooms consist of 874 suites ranging from 650 to 760 square feet, 23 suites in 1,060 square feet, 6 suites in 1,470 square feet, and 23 suites in 2,470 square feet. The rooms have futuristic looks and feature dark forests, cream carpets, and eclectic art. Some nods to Caesar’s Roman-themed past, including silk clothing embroidered with Caesar’s bust and framed art by Roman statues. All the suites are equipped with plasma screen televisions in bathrooms, bedrooms, and living rooms. Voice internet service is available for phone calls around the world as well as high-speed internet service.
Some of the largest suites overlook the recently built Roman Plaza and outdoor amphitheater, where Caesars hosted boxing matches and other sporting events. Others overlook the Garden of God, the name of Caesars’ four Roman-style swimming pools. The Augustus Tower lobby will be the main entrance to the resort, replacing the small temporary lobby that has served to house numerous visitors during the tower’s construction.
The new lobby approximately doubles the resort’s original entrance area and has a huge mosaic on the wall and a large marble fountain in the center. Selesner said the lobby, which houses the VIP valet entrance on Flamingo Road, was designed to create a “feeling of arrival” for guests. With 24-hour cafes and retail stores open as the foyer, the space was designed not just to check in, but also to serve as a gathering place for guests, said Caesars spokesperson Debbie Munch.
Matthew Jacob, stock analyst at Majestic Research, said the tower should drive both gambling and hotel profits “because visitors often gamble at their lodgings.” Jacob said in a research note to investors last month that gambling volumes were up 2% year-on-year in the year following Caesars’ previous 1997 hotel tower expansion. Still, the property’s share in the strip game market has fallen since the opening of Bellagio, then Las Vegas’ most expensive and luxurious resort, in December 1998.