Circa Casino Adding More Hotel Rooms

Posted on: August 27, 2024, 04:23h. 

Last updated on: August 28, 2024, 09:56h.

Todd Shriber @etfgodfather Read More
Expertise: Financial, Gaming Business, Mergers and Acquisitions.

Circa Resort & Casino in downtown Las Vegas is boosting its room count by 106 with the additions slated to begin in October.

Circa convention
Circa Resort & Casino in downtown Las Vegas. The venue is adding 106 rooms. (Image: YouTube)

The new rooms include four suites and 102 traditional guest spaces, and will bring the casino hotel’s room tally to 618. Privately held Circa will open the new accommodations on a floor-by-floor basis. Circa, the highest-rated property in downtown Las Vegas, opened in October 2020 as the first from the ground-up new casino hotel in that part of Sin City in several decades. In a recent interview with Paul Szydelko of Travel Weekly, Circa co-founder and CEO Derek Stevens detailed why now is an appropriate time for expansion.

We had to allow enough time to go by to allow the market and our customer base to tell us what we needed to do for the next step. We needed to get more data to know how we wanted to fill in the rest of the hotel,” Stevens said in the interview.

When Stevens and his partners filed plans for Circa with Clark County, it was stated that the property could eventually feature 777 rooms, but that figure assumed only standard rooms and no suites. He said that tally won’t be reached.

Circa Conquered COVID-19 Headwinds

As noted above, Circa opened in October 2020, meaning the venue faced challenges presented by the coronavirus pandemic.

Those issues lingered into 2021 and some of 2022, but helped by some showmanship by Stevens, Circa has thrived as Las Vegas returned to a sense of post-pandemic normalcy. Specific to Circa, the venue boosted its status as an adults-only property and as home to one of the largest sportsbooks in the world. It’s also one of the most posh casino hotels in downtown Las Vegas.

Stevens hasn’t rested on those laurels. Two years ago, Circa announced plans for 35,000 square feet of new convention space in downtown Vegas, throwing the venue into more competition with Strip rivals in the fight for meeting and convention business. Sin City’s convention business has gradually recovered since the pandemic.

In addition to Circa, Stevens controls D Las Vegas, Golden Gate Hotel & Casino, and the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center.

Expect More Power at Circa

In the Travel Weekly interview, Stevens said that by the middle of 2023 — following the COVID-19 challenges of 2021 and 2022 — he believed there was enough data to make a solid determination on expansion.

As for missteps in the venue’s early days, he told the publication there weren’t enough electrical outlets in rooms. That will be ameliorated with the upcoming additions.

“One thing we screwed up the most is we thought we had a ton of electrical outlets when we opened, and yet we didn’t have enough. We’re going to open all these new rooms with even more electrical outlets than what we’ve had previously,” Stevens said in the interview.