Boyd Gaming decides to demolish this long-closed Las Vegas casino

Boyd Gaming Corp. never reopened its Eastside Cannery property after Nevada’s casinos were closed for 78 days in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic.

Now, the Las Vegas-based company has made a decision about what to do with the 17-year-old property and its 16-story tower holding 307 hotel rooms: demolish it and turn the land into a housing development.

Boyd officials on Friday confirmed its intent with a brief emailed statement.

“It has been more than five years since we closed Eastside Cannery, and there is not sufficient market demand to reopen the facility,” Boyd’s statement said. “Given this, we are finalizing plans to demolish the building. We are currently in discussions to sell the site for residential use.”

For years, the company waited and watched east Las Vegas market conditions along Boulder Highway where Boyd has its Sam’s Town locals property to the north and is replacing its Henderson Joker’s Wild Casino with Cadence Crossing to the south.

Boyd operates 10 locals and downtown Las Vegas casinos in Southern Nevada.

The company broke ground on Cadence Crossing in April, two months after it announced the decision to purchase the 29.5 acres where the resort stood from former Eastside Cannery operator Bill Wortman for $45 million. In February, Boyd did not say what was in store for the property that first opened its doors Aug. 28, 2008.

Boyd acquired Eastside Cannery and its North Las Vegas sister property, Cannery, for $230 million in 2016.

In addition to its hotel rooms, Eastside Cannery had a 64,000-square-foot casino, several bars and restaurants, a 16th-floor club, a 250-seat entertainment lounge and 20,000 square feet of meeting and ballroom space.

After the building’s 2020 COVID-19 shutdown, Boyd maintained it by investing more than a half-million dollars a month to run utilities inside and keep IT and security systems secure and operating.

In letters to Clark County, Boyd said Three Square Food Bank used the property as a weekly food distribution site during the pandemic, and police and firefighters used it for training drills.

The Metropolitan Police Department conducted more than a dozen training exercises at Eastside Cannery, including room clearing, active-shooter scenarios and cadet seminars. Crime scene investigators also used hotel rooms as part of their academy testing.

The Clark County Fire Department also used the property to train on stairwells and to practice room searches and elevator rescues.

The planned Eastside Cannery demolition marks the final Las Vegas Valley casino property disposal since the massive COVID-19 shutdowns. Red Rock Resorts sold and eventually demolished three of its properties: North Las Vegas’ Texas Station and Fiesta Rancho and Henderson’s Fiesta Henderson. The North Las Vegas properties are being transformed into a retail plaza while Henderson government leaders are reviewing what’s planned at Fiesta Henderson.

The only standing but still shuttered casino property from the COVID-shutdown era is the Colorado Belle on the Colorado River in Laughlin.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.