May10
Hard Rock Las Vegas to Transform to Virgin Casino Hotel
December 23, 2018 Andrej Vidovic
In late summer/early fall of 2019, Hard Rock Las Vegas will commence the eight-month ordeal that will be a thorough makeover resulting in a Virgin Casino Hotel transformation that is due to open its doors for public in first half of 2020.
The off-Strip venue will become a Virgin-branded resort with plentiful amenities after the company’s head, billionaire Richard Branson, announced in April that Virgin Hotels purchased the Hard Rock Casino for an undisclosed amount of money.
This will be the maiden land-based Virgin casino and Branson’s first venture into the casino industry…
…as more of his casinos are expected to pop up over the coming years in a creation of a brand new chain of commercial casinos.
A Big Pledge to Employees
During the renovations, casino will remain open for business and visitors for the first four months – in the second half of the eight-month overhaul, it will be temporarily closed down.
During this closure, employees and of the staff who would like to stay with the casino after the four-month temporary layoff would be able to return to work without needing to reapply for it. These individuals will be g the so called, “I’ll Stick Around and Come Back” pledge and will receive a compensation package during their time off.
Richard Bosworth, CEO and president of J.C.Hospitality, held a series of meetings with the casino workers and was quoted as saying:
“Number 1, we wanted to say to the staff that we think 2019 will be a record-breaking year for Hard Rock Hotel, and as we move into the renovation we wanted to give a sense of what the disruption of their lives would look like to them, personally.”, and added:
“When we acquired the company, we committed that we would provide a level of financial assistance to our team during this disruption period.”
Work to be Done
Branson, whose net worth is said to be around $5 billion and who controls more than 400 companies under the Virgin umbrella, says that the key to his brand’s recognition in the casino industry is to “be fun and to not take ourselves too seriously.” He will be investing $150 million in the Vegas /vegas-to-invest-16-billion-in-development-by-2025/ property that will be launched what he describes as “a massive party.”
Virgin brand will be leaving their footprint on all of 1,500 renovated hotel rooms…
…Expanded and upgraded will also be casino floors, conference space and restaurants will be built and/or expanded from their current capacity and the pool deck will be reimagined beyond recognition.
Owners Future and Past
Virgin’s acquisition of Hard Rock Las Vegas – seemingly fitting because both founders’ have a deep-rooted love for music, with Branson beginning his career with Virgin Records – was assisted by several other co-investors:
- Juniper Capital Partners
- Fengate Real Asset Investments
- Dream Hard Asset Alternatives
- Crowie Capital Partners
Today’s property was opened in 1995 by Peter Morton, the very man who came up with the Hard Rock Cafe franchise. He sold the Hard Rock brand in 2006 for $770 million to Morgans Hotel Group. Hard Rock Casino LV itself was sold in 2011.
Source:
“Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel to go dark for 4 months in Virgin renovations”, reviewjournal.com, December 19, 2018.
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Gonna be a huge change for sure, but I am so willing to see how Branson will operate his casinos and whether he will think of something to make them pop a bit.