New gaming tables and chairs have been installed in a roomier casino at the El Cortez as part of the property's $20 million renovation. A pit area is photographed Wednesday. Photos by Ronda Churchill Mike Nolan, general manager of the El Cortez, speaks Wednesday about the property's renovations.

Even Mike Nolan, the El Cortez's biggest cheerleader, will admit that time hasn't always been kind to the 66-year-old hotel-casino and surrounding neighborhood.

The casino, at 600 E. Fremont St., is more than 20 years older than 10 Las Vegas casinos that were doomed to implosion in the past 15 years. For a time, it was known as much for its aging rooms and smoky air as it was for its historic pedigree.

Today, workers are more than halfway through $20 million in upgrades to the property, and the rundown block of Fremont Street surrounding it is being transformed by hipster nightclubs, upscale condo construction and street renovations aimed at reviving downtown Las Vegas.

"Nobody is embarrassed to invite people down now, to stay in the rooms, to eat in the restaurants," said Nolan, the El Cortez's general manager and chief operating officer. "I couldn't have made that statement two years ago."

The hotel operators are betting that thorough upgrades to the rooms and the casino will keep the historic property relevant as new residents, businesses and street improvements attract downtown foot traffic by younger and more affluent people.

David G. Schwartz, director of the center for gaming research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said tapping the young-and-moneyed crowd could work for the El Cortez. "I think there is a real hunger for vintage Vegas, and this is genuine vintage Vegas," Schwartz said.

The El Cortez's location, three blocks east of the Fremont Street Experience light-show canopy, works for and against the property, Schwartz said. On the down side, it separates the hotel from the neon-slathered cluster of casinos and pedestrian mall that attracts millions of gamblers and tourists each year. Although the canopy has been in place only since 1995, the El Cortez's location has been considered a challenge since it was built, Schwartz said.

"Back then, it was considered to be so far away from the train station it wouldn't be viable," he said.

Today the dark and empty Neonopolis mall is between the El Cortez and the most heavily visited portion of the Fremont Street Experience.

"It is kind of funny that 60 years later it is considered to be isolated for a different reason," he said.

But the location away from the canopy also can be a positive for the El Cortez.

The city has designated the area around it as an entertainment district called Fremont East. It is creating street upgrades and other incentives to entice entertainment-oriented businesses such as bars and nightclubs.

Also, there is Streamline Tower, a 22-story, luxury condo tower with 251 units, under construction at Ogden Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard. It will be only a few minutes' walk to the El Cortez for residents.

Another tower of up to 35 stories is proposed at 601 Fremont across from the El Cortez, and still another of up to 47 stories is proposed at Eighth Street and Fremont, although construction on the Fremont towers hasn't started, so there is no guarantee they will be built, said Scott Adams, business development director for the city of Las Vegas.

Nonetheless, new residents and visitors to the entertainment district might want a casino experience similar to what's depicted in accounts of downtown's mid-century heyday and away from the gaudy lights of the Fremont Street Experience. "When Frank Sinatra came to town they did not have a light show on ... a canopy," Schwartz said.

The El Cortez is the only casino that will be licensed to operate in the entertainment district and is in the middle of the area, making it a good draw for gamblers.

"I'd love to see somebody do a casino that looks like 1950," Paul Devitt, owner of the Beauty Bar, 517 E. Fremont St., said of the El Cortez.

Devitt said that as long as the renovations are not done in a "cheeseball" fashion, the El Cortez will complement newer businesses such as his bar.

"If you are going to make the statement, you need to do it all the way," Devitt said.

Ultimately, the customers at the El Cortez will decide whether the upgrades are a success.

The El Cortez's 300 hotel rooms have been refurbished, and work on the 100-room Ogden House rooms is expected to begin in April.

Workers are making their way across the casino floor and laying new carpet, replacing the wall coverings. They already have installed new table games and widened the notoriously cramped aisles on the gambling floor by reducing the number of slot machines from 2,260 to 1,050 in the 45,300-square-foot casino, Nolan said.

It maintains several coin-operated machines that are still in favor with longtime customers who prefer them to modern, ticket-based machines, he said.

"A lot of our longtime players are 50 to 70 (years old)," Nolan said. "They feel comfortable here."

Outside, workers are upgrading the western façade with a vintage look for the porte cochere that will highlight the property via a historic-style boulevard connected to Las Vegas Boulevard, complete with a 1950s-era replica sign to draw people to the property.

The casino also struck a deal with Michael Gaughan's South Point casino to operate the sports book, allowing the El Cortez to take bigger action.

"We used to take two, three, four thousand (dollars)," El Cortez director and partner Kenny Epstein said. "Now we take anything within reason."

Nolan said the hotel operators have invested about $12 million in the property in the last two years and have plans to spend another $6 million to $8 million this year. Eventually, the operators envision a fitness center, a business center and even an outdoor pool at the Ogden House, which they hope to complete by year's end.

El Cortez operators also hired an outside firm to study the future of the hotel, casino and surrounding property. In addition to the El Cortez, the owners have seven acres, mostly between Las Vegas Boulevard to the west, Eighth Street to the east, Carson Street to the south and Stewart Avenue to the north.

The 10-year vision considers the possibility of everything from new restaurants and convention space to new hotel towers, Nolan said. But for now the vision exists in concept only.

"We are not promising it. It is a vision," Nolan said.