EDITORIAL: Riviera makes way for progress

The Riviera is going public in a way the Strip has never seen before.

The 60-year-old hotel, once iconic but now merely old, has its final owner: the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

On Friday, the authority’s board approved the $182.5 million purchase of the Riviera to move forward with the Las Vegas Global Business District, a $2.3 billion expansion of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Buying the aging hotel and demolishing it will allow the authority to extend the convention center campus west to Las Vegas Boulevard.

Adding 750,000 square feet of convention space to 3.2 million square feet of refurbished halls is critical to attracting more large trade shows to Las Vegas, and the investment in the north Strip should accelerate hotel development around it.

The authority’s mission is promoting Southern Nevada tourism and operating the convention center. Using the room tax revenues that fund the agency to buy a 2,100-room hotel-casino and put more than 850 people out of work would appear to stretch the boundaries of its mission.

But the Riviera sale wasn’t completed through eminent domain. Its owners, Connecticut-based private equity firm Starwood Capital Group, were willing sellers. The property was the first high-rise on the Strip when it opened in 1955 and hosted some of the top entertainers in town. But it went through multiple bankruptcies in recent decades and still struggles to compete with the Strip’s modern properties. It makes sense for the convention center to have Strip frontage, and the Riviera site is the best place for it.

“This is really going to be bad news for other convention markets,” MGM Resorts International Chairman Jim Murren said of the transaction. “I love this deal because it will create an attractive corridor from the Strip to the convention center. It’s going to help bring people down to that end of the Strip.”

The Riviera will celebrate its 60th anniversary April 20. It will close May 4.

More Strip history will be torn down to make way for new amenities. It’s a sign that the economy continues to improve, and that Las Vegas tourism is positioned to flourish into the future.

So long, Riviera. Thanks for the memories.