Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Tropicana convention booking halted, raising speculation

The Tropicana is no longer booking convention business past May 2004, leading many industry officials to believe the resort's owners may be planning to redevelop the prime Strip parcel as early as next spring.

Suspicions that Aztar Corp., the Tropicana's Phoenix-based parent company, has already decided to redevelop the property is also sparking union concerns that the resort's plans could leave 2,000 workers out of a job.

Aztar executives have publicly said they were waiting until the end of this year to decide whether to redevelop their prized parcel at the southeast corner of Tropicana Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard.

Company executives Tuesday confirmed that the 46-year old hotel-casino recently stopped booking conventions and meetings at its 101,000-square-foot convention center beginning next year.

"We are not booking convention business after May 2004," Aztar spokesman Joe Cole said Tuesday, adding: "I wouldn't read anything into this. We're keeping our options open."

Three Las Vegas casino executives, speaking on condition of anonymity, however, said the Tropicana's decision to stop booking meetings indicates Aztar has decided, or nearly decided, to demolish and redevelop the property.

They can't envision why casino operators would shut off a significant revenue source unless they were almost certain they would be unable to tap it.

"They would have to have a really good idea about what they were planning to do," said one top casino executive.

Another boss with Aztar connections said company bosses are merely waiting for the right time to enter the market with a new property.

"They're going to start from scratch," the executive said. "They have one of the best sites on the Strip. They've got to close it down so they can start from scratch and hire a new work force. They'll build their casino right out to the Strip, connecting the pedestrian walkways (over Tropicana and Las Vegas Boulevard) right into their joint. They're working on a good plan."

A third executive agreed that if Aztar's plans aren't finalized, they're almost finished.

"Clearly something's up," the boss said. "If they've made the decision to cut off convention bookings this far out, they've obviously decided to do something with the property."

Culinary Secretary-Treasurer D. Taylor said Tuesday the company's decision to halt convention sales will probably worry Tropicana's employees.

"They think like most people," Taylor said. "The company clearly has plans and hasn't revealed them. The workers are angry, frustrated and suspicious, not a good formula for customer service."

The Tropicana Las Vegas employs about 2,000 workers. About 1,100 of the workers are members of the Culinary and Bartenders' unions, 200 are members of other unions and 700 are nonunion employees.

Culinary Local 226 officials have been unable to finish negotiations on the contract terms agreed to last summer with the Tropicana.

The economic terms are settled, according to union officials and company filings, but the parties have been unable to agree on whether Culinary maids, food-service workers and bellmen would be the first hired if and when the Tropicana is redeveloped.

In other words, if existing workers want their old jobs back at the new resort, the union wants them to get them, guaranteed. In negotiations as recently as last week property bosses told the workers that the company wants the flexibility to hire its own work force, Taylor said.

Aztar's annual proxy statement filed earlier this month told shareholders that the company had yet to decide if and when to redevelop its Las Vegas site.

"We are conducting feasibility studies to master-plan a potential development of the Tropicana Las Vegas site," the filing said. "The amount and timing of any future expenditure, and the extent of any impact on existing operations, will depend on the nature and timing of the development we ultimately undertake, if any."

Aztar's proxy filing didn't express confidence in the Trop's ability to compete without redevelopment.

"We cannot assure you that we will be able to compete successfully with this additional capacity in this active market of mega-casinos," the proxy noted.