Thursday, September 23, 2010

Brandon Flowers - Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas

Here is a new song to add to your Las Vegas play-list. Brandon Flowers of The Killers has released a solo album called Flamingo, and the first song on the album is called Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas. The song definitely has a Vegas feel and would be a nice addition on your iPod for the plane ride in.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Wayne Newton wants to turn Home into Museum

Wayne Newton has been making some headlines over the past couple of days.

First it was reported by TMZ that he had his abandoned jet shipped to his house in Las Vegas and it is now being displayed on his lawn. Apparently the plane fell into disrepair a while back when Newton couldn't afford maintenance. The aircraft sat at the Detroit airport until the powers that be finally made him remove it.

Secondly it looks like Wayne is trying to convert his famous Casa de Shenandoah estate into a tourist attraction. He held a meeting with his neighbors who were reportedly not happy with the possibility. Since the estate is in a residential area, Newton has to file paperwork to get a special use permit which he will likely do soon. The airplane story makes more sense now - he could use the plane as part of the attraction for tourists to check out.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Plaza Hotel Closing in November

Hotel operations at the Plaza downtown will close on November 11th. The casino will remain open, along with the popular Firefly restaurant and Rat Pack is Back show.

The official word is that the hotel is closing for renovations and will re-open in 2011 with the new name Union Plaza. Unofficially though many people are wondering if the remodeling will be done and how soon. It might make more economic sense to just leave the hotel closed for a while until things turn around a little bit. With rooms downtown as cheap as they are the hotel portion of the revenue can't be that substantial.

Unfortunately the closure means the loss of 400 jobs. The Plaza's parent company will try to place some of the employees at their other hotels (Las Vegas Club and The Western) and will also try to re-hire them if and when the hotel re-opens.

It will be interesting to see how well the planned renovations go, along with the planned renovations over at Lady Luck. If things go as planned, downtown visitors could have two new fresh hotels to choose from in 2011 and 2012. On the flip side there's a pretty good chance that things will be put on hold indefinitely, which would be another negative development for downtown.