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Viva Vegas: Tropicana Still on Death Watch

Where: 3801 Las Vegas Blvd S [map], Las Vegas, nv, United States, 89109

January 31, 2008 at 11:45 AM | 0 Comments

We've reported before on the business soap opera known as the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas. It has been on our Hotel Casino Death Watch, noted for having a serious anti-view from the cheapest rooms, and we mentioned last year that there was a delay in its renovations.

According to a report last week in the Wall Street Journal, the planned $3.5 billion restoration and 9,500-room addition "are at best on hold, and at worse under an ominous question mark while [the owner] manages the fallout of losing another casino, the Tropicana Atlantic City."

In December, for only the second time in 29 years, gambling regulators in New Jersey refused a casino owner an operating license when they yanked control of that casino from Mr. Yung, citing poor management practices, a cleanliness crisis, and a failure to abide by state regulations after Mr. Yung cut 900 employees and, according to regulators, failed to set up an audit committee according to state specifications.

Ouch. Yung is now selling the Atlantic City casino, as well as other properties, in order to pay off creditors. He's going to have a tough time getting new financing. Another developer has just defaulted on a $760 million loan, plus there's already $35 billion in other building projects underway--in the middle of a banking crisis.

There's one silver lining in all of this: we can still find a cheap midweek room on The Strip!

[Photo: hotel-casino-spa]