Boyd Gaming hires contractor for Eastside Cannery demolition

Boyd Gaming Corp. has hired a firm with a history of demolishing casinos to tear down a shuttered Las Vegas hotel, records show.

The Clark County Building Department on Oct. 20 issued a commercial demolition permit, valued at $7.5 million, for the Boyd-owned Eastside Cannery on Boulder Highway, records show.

Las Vegas Demolition is listed on the permit as the contractor. The firm, owned by brothers Joe and Sal Catania, tore down Fiesta Rancho, Fiesta Henderson and Texas Station, among other projects listed on its website.

Those three properties were owned by Station Casinos and, like Eastside Cannery, never reopened from the pandemic shutdowns.

Las Vegas Demolition declined to comment for this story.

Boyd spokesman David Strow said Friday there is “not sufficient market demand to reopen” Eastside Cannery and that the company is “finalizing plans to demolish” the hotel-casino.

Boyd also is “in discussions to sell the site for residential use,” he said.

Strow declined additional comment Monday.

Boyd acquired the Cannery hotel-casino in North Las Vegas and the Eastside Cannery, on Boulder Highway between Flamingo Road and Tropicana Avenue, for about $230 million combined in 2016.

Eastside Cannery featured 300-plus hotel rooms, a 64,000-square-foot casino, several bars and restaurants, a 250-seat entertainment lounge and 20,000 square feet of meeting and ballroom space.

In March 2020, then-Gov. Steve Sisolak ordered casinos and other businesses in Nevada closed to help contain the coronavirus outbreak. Nevada’s casinos were allowed to reopen in June 2020, but Eastside Cannery remained closed.

Boyd purchased the land underneath Eastside Cannery this past February for $45 million, property records show. It had been leasing the roughly 29.5-acre footprint.

At the time, Boyd declined to comment on the land purchase.

Even though Eastside Cannery has been closed for business, other organizations have made use of the site.

Three Square Food Bank used the property for a weekly food distribution site during the pandemic, and police and firefighters used it for training drills.

The Metropolitan Police Department conducted 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.

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

Las Vegas-based Boyd operates several other hotel-casinos in Southern Nevada, including The Orleans, Suncoast, Gold Coast, California Hotel and, on Boulder Highway, Sam’s Town.

Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.