MGM's Vegas Land Purchase, A's Make A Deal, Celine Returning & A New Carousel Bar Comes to Town!

Hello and welcome to the MTM Vegas podcast. I'm Sean Coomer, your host, joined us always by Mark Ostrman. We have a great show for you. You can watch this show along with all the visuals that go with it at youtube.com forward slash miles to memories. Normally we record two shows a week on YouTube and combine them into this podcast for your listening enjoyment. This week due to our travel schedules, we only recorded one show. So this podcast will be a little bit shorter than normal. On this week's show, we're going to update you about Plaza's carousel bar. It is now open. We'll tell you what people are saying about it. Plus, MGM has made a very curious land purchase on the strip. We have a POV of what the Formula One race track will look like. The historic planet Hollywood restaurant at form shops is now closed and we update you on the A's reaching a deal with the governor of Nevada for a stadium. It most likely will happen, but what exactly will it look like? All of that plus crazy EDC prices coming up on this show. If you like our biggest content, you can find everything we do post podcasts and videos at mtmvegas.com. Thanks so much for listening. Let's hit it. So Mark, EDC was back in town. That man exposed rear ends everywhere and high fees and costs of food. Did you see that $96 pizza? Yeah, I mean, that's just robbery. It really is. We've talked about wanting to go there for a couple years now and this really just, you know, I love pizza, so I'm not paying $100 for pizza. That's just, it's crazy. I'll just go watch people come back on the strip and get to see all the outfits. You don't get the music, but, you know, you get to eat affordable food on the strip, I guess. Yeah, only $40 pizza. But did you see they don't charge extra for the toppings? All the different varieties were the same price, so that was a good deal. Yeah, you can get it spicy for a hundred bucks or you can get it playing for a hundred bucks. I mean, that's great. The Plaza's Carousel Bar is now open. I guess it doesn't officially open until June 10th, I think, with the rest of the stuff, but it has now soft opened and it's under that old driveway area with the sparkly lights and some early reviews came in. A lot of people love it. It looks really nice. They have like booth seating, really cool bar and then machines at the bar, which there's a little controversy about those because I guess the sparkly lights cause a little interference. Yeah, I'm kind of curious that they wouldn't have figured out something to do because it just looks like it reflects and it's kind of a terrible gaming experience, which I don't play poker, video poker very much or anything, so it's not a big deal to me. But anybody that wants to go there, that's something to consider for sure. I don't know that it would be, you wouldn't think a strip front thing would have the best odds anyway. So it might not be a big thing other than throwing like 20 or 50 bucks in there or whatever and just playing through it while you get your drinks, which it's good to see that they do comp drinks. I think they said somebody said it starts off comp and then you have to earn the light for the second drink. So similar to what you see at other properties. Yeah, and they had originally announced no comp drinks there, so they backtracked on that. So kudos to them for that. They also have a secret menu that you can scan a QR code and get the secret menu, so make sure to check that out. It's not secret anymore. No, the secret's out. Yeah, I think that's how secret menus work, right? You created it and then you want everybody to know about it. So they come there for that. There's an on smoking casino, Jonathan Jussles shared a video that that's coming along. That'll open probably June 10th along with everything else. That's not a huge space as we didn't expect. This is, I believe in the old beer garden space out there, but it'll be a nice place to avoid smoke, I suppose, for people that want to do that. There's no bar in there, but I guess they'll have cocktail service from the carousel bar. So you'll be able to get cocktail service, like I just said, a normal casino free drinks, everything else. But it's good to see that property getting that frontage, getting that love and I think the carousel bar was a great idea and I think they pulled it off. There's mistors out there as well, so it'll be nice in the hot summer or as nice as it can be, I suppose. Yeah, I thought you always yell at me when I go outside in the summer. So even when you have mistors, you say, no, you don't go out until it's dark. I do, okay. All right, Resorts World, you're like, what are you doing outside right now sitting out here by the bar? Let's go inside. This is because you made me come outside with you because it was so darn hot. Yeah, I was okay with you being out there, but me having to come out there, yeah, that was, you know, locals don't do that midday summer sun. So MGM is purchasing a very small strip of land that they currently rent and they've rented for some period of time. It's that land sitting basically between Bellagio and Cosmo and again, they've rented this land. There's not much there other than storage and could this be that they're going to extend the bridge like from Bellagio into Cosmo, try to connect it so you don't have to go to the street and cross it. I can't think of any other reason that they would buy the land now. $54 million, I believe it's quite a bit of money and it doesn't seem like they can really build anything there with as skinny as this piece of property is. Well, why did somebody own it in the first place? It's just so weird that they're like, no, I'm not going to give this a little bit up. Maybe they were holding out until they got this high price tag and, you know, initial offers were much lower or like half or something like that would be my guess, but they definitely need to connect it to. So hopefully that's what this is leading to otherwise. It's kind of useless. I don't even know why they were running it, maybe just so nobody would put something there that they would find annoying. It's the only thing that really makes sense. Yeah, it was shared by a five-hundie on Twitter and he has a podcast. He says he's going to talk about all about the history of that on his next podcast. So check that out. I will be. I don't think it's come out yet, but he will talk all about it. There's some interesting replies to his tweet as well with some jokes about the size in shape of the land. So check that out. But yeah, it's another little window. Exactly. So the F1 2023 video game came out and now we have a render basically of what the race course will look like. Now, we kind of knew what it's going to look like, but basically you can now be the driver, go along the course, see all the sites. They did a really good job of accurately recreating the Las Vegas landscape. I think they changed the names of the casinos obviously for licensing reasons, but you get to see everything correctly. And I get a feeling mark that you don't like it. You don't think that this is cool. Well, I mean, it's a perspective that nobody else is going to have besides the drivers, but I don't think it like shows off Vegas really well from that perspective. It's a lot of, you know, all the stands blocking everything. So you're not seeing fountains. You're not seeing a lot of the hotel. I mean, you do see the world's most expensive movie theater up close and personal, which is pretty cool. And it does look, it does look cool in the game. But the rest of it, it's like just buildings and blocked. It could be anywhere. You know, you get a little bit of the tops of the buildings with the lights and everything. And I know that the zoom out, the drone level view of the race on TV will look really cool. But I feel like anybody that's there or watching it is just not really going to get any of that atmosphere unless you have like a rooftop area that you're looking down on everything. And I guess the, you know, the anticlimactic part of this is you can drive all these roads right now. So it's not like you're getting a perspective that you couldn't get just driving. And you know, speaking of that, the construction still is going on all over the strip as far as getting the road ready. And people are getting upset. It's really been ugly. You know, I was there a few weeks ago and it half the strip was closed down around the Harris area. And it just keeps moving along, but it's causing so many headaches. We need tunnels. Yeah. As we've said before, though, it's only going to be this year, apparently. And then in future years, they only have to do very short, amount of construction because they're putting a base layer down there. But yeah, this is a huge investment that the community, I feel, is making for this race, sacrificing on traffic, on all kinds of headaches. And I think it'll be a success. Like you said, the TV presentation of it will make it look spectacular. And even though there might not be the greatest sightlines with all the stands and everything, I'm sure the cameras on TV will make it look wonderful. We'll see. I mean, I think it will look great, though. At night from TV, the movie theater will look amazing and, you know, a plot. You'll still see the fountains from up high. So I think it will go off really well on TV. And I bet the airports will be busy with private jets. So we talked a few shows or earlier this year about how Strat, they sort of lied about the fact that they were going to implement paid parking and then, you know, the gates went up. We all knew it was like the worst kept secret. And then eventually they did it. And we sort of short. That would be the cocktail menu at the carousel bar. That's the. Okay. That's the secret. Okay. That's the worst kept secret. The secret menu. We're at the cocktail bar. All right. The second worst kept secret in Vegas. And then, you know, we talked about when they implemented how this was a little short-sighted, they get a lot of local traffic and, you know, how this was going to hurt them in that way. And it seems like maybe that's the case. Vital Vegas was reporting, said it was confirmed, but not yet announced that they are going to give free parking to locals. I think this is a good move. You know, I was recently down there and just didn't go down there to film because I didn't want to pay for parking and I didn't have time to go park somewhere else and walk over there. And I think a lot of people who want to just try the restaurants, you know, go up to the tower, they need to draw those people in. You know, just like everything else in Vegas, stick it to the tourists and give the locals a break. Ouch. No, I mean, the question is, how bad will the system be? Because, you know, we talked about how complicated it was to get into the parking structure there. So I love that they're giving locals free. They should have done it from the beginning, but at least the pressure from everybody changed their mind there. But what is that system going to be like for the locals to get in there? Is it still going to be so aggravating that they don't even want to mess with it, even if it is free, you know, or do you have a thing that you just quickly swipe in the gate opens for you? I'll be interesting to see how they implement it, but they really need to knock that out of the park otherwise it could be a big problem, even if it is free. Yeah, hopefully they implement a system like they have it seizures or MGM where you just stick your license in, but we know they're using that weird QR code system. So we'll see how they implement it, but it's good to see them backtracking a little bit on this and, you know, just realizing that they need that local audience over at the forum shops. Planet Hollywood restaurant is closed, and this has been there for 29 years. Now, I think it moved in 2012 to its current location, which was a little bit closer to the strip, but more removed from like the main part of the mall and then part of the casino. And they kind of cited that in saying that that's one of the reasons that they're closing. They just don't have that great enough location, but 29 years that restaurant has been at that property. And it was just always a, I don't know, like a visual icon. I think it was their second Planet Hollywood location after the one in New York, if I'm correct. A piece of history dying for sure. Yeah, I've been in there once. I can't remember if it was in the old location or the new one. I feel like I had to go upstairs and it was in a back corner kind of tucked away somewhere. The bartender gave us a whole bunch of free drinks when she messed up making drinks for people. So I had a great experience there, but, you know, I always thought it was kind of funny that you had a Planet Hollywood, the casino, and they didn't have the restaurant there. So I would have loved to see it move in there. I think that would have been kind of cool. And I know the restaurant was way before the casino, but it just always seemed kind of funny to me that there were in different places, you know, like back in the day, hard rock was right there with the, the casino. So, but I kind of feel like that's kind of where we're at with these type of themed restaurants that were big in the like the 80s and 90s, you know, hard rock, Planet Hollywood, stuff like that where they had like a kitschy feel to it. Just aren't popular anymore. People don't care. Like they want a higher end experience. They don't care about movie memorabilia from 1992 anymore, you know, you can look at it online. I guess I don't know. It's just funny to see. Some owner of the Planet Hollywood restaurant at Formshops owns the Cafe Hollywood at Planet Hollywood, and it does have like some memorabilia there. I wonder if maybe we could see that turn into a Planet Hollywood restaurant. Wouldn't that make sense to have that at the Planet Hollywood resort? Again, it's the same owner, but you know, who knows if that will happen. I don't think Planet Hollywood's brightest days are ahead of it as a brand. Like you said, the whole themed entertainment restaurant thing doesn't seem as vibrant as it was like in the 90s and 2000s. Alright, so Celine is coming back in 2024, or at least that's the rumor. Now Johnny Cads, who is the entertainment reporter for the review journal, and I won't try to pronounce his last name because I'll say it wrong, but he knows this stuff. He really is a good guy to follow on Twitter, and he's all around town, says that the word is she'll be back in 2024 at Resorts World, and that hopefully means her health is doing better. And we finally will see that residency that she was supposed to launch along with, you know, the other ones that did that in the opening year. It's been almost a couple of years since she had a postpone that, so good to hear something, and hopefully Celine will be back on the strip before long. Yeah, and we knew about this, but it's still kind of curious to see how well Resorts World's done with these big names and getting them in, and that's kind of been like their feather in the cap of, hey, we have the best live performances. We have the biggest names at our theater, you know, where Caesar's and MGM used to have those somewhat, and now it's just Resorts World. That's the go-to for a marquee-type show of that caliber of singing, all that stuff. I hope she comes back. That'd be great. That's like the mainstay of Vegas, Wayne Newton and Celine, right? There you go. I mean, she really was the OG of the residency, right, bringing that to the Coliseum. That was the first, at least I can remember, a big residency that was marketed in that way. It was a true residency, went on for years and years and years and years, and she's definitely a big draw, and well loved in the community, and hopefully, and I think she lives in Las Vegas as well, so I'm glad to see that apparently she's going to be back, so we'll keep an eye on that. And now we have to move on to the A's, talk about the A's once again. No, I said on the last show we talked about this, that I thought the deal was going to get done with state legislators because that's just the way Las Vegas is. Because money works? Yeah. Yes. It seemed the writing was on the wall, and of course, that's what happened. The governor came out, and he released this statement. This agreement follows months of negotiations between the state, the county, and the A's, and I believe it gives us a tremendous opportunity to continue building on the professional sports infrastructure of Southern Nevada. Las Vegas is clearly a sports town, and Major League Baseball should be part of it. As part of this announcement, they sort of touted that this is the largest private investment in MLB history, mainly because this stadium is going to be so expensive that the owner of the A's is putting in over a billion dollars of his own money. They also said the private public split was the best among many recent ballpark, so they were really spinning the information here, but the state is going to put in some money, the county is going to put in some money, they're going to get a property tax exemption, and this is going to get them up to about $380 million altogether when you add in all of that stuff. The bonds, the stadium district, and property tax exemption, so they're not getting everything they wanted, but they're getting a lot of it. Yeah, they're getting the most of the way there, and I still believe my mind that it's this expensive. I mean, I know what the land isn't really a part of that price tag, wasn't that gifted to them. This is expensive, and it's one of the smaller stadiums in MLB, so I just don't know what are you adding in there? Are the chairs going to massage you? I don't know where the money is going, but hey, they got the deal done. I didn't think they'd do it. I thought this would get bumped until later in the year, so they definitely dropped off some big bags of money. I'm just the rumor that, but allegedly, there we go, covering our butts. So the interesting thing in their spin was they kind of went over some of the more recent MLB stadiums, so the Texas Rangers stadium cost $1.2 billion and got 700 million in public financing. One of my stadiums? Yeah. Atlanta Braves, which we talked about before, it cost 672 million, and they got 300 million in public financing. Miami's stadium, $634 million price tag, 80% or 507 million was paid for with public money. But it twins, it only paid $345 million for their stadium in 2010, $230 million of that was public money, and the Yankees, the Yankees stadium cost $2.3 billion to build. It's horrible, too. Why is it so much more expensive? But $1.2 billion, $1.2 billion was paid for with public funds. So I guess if you look at it that way, it's one thing, but also, you know, Las Vegas has a lot to offer. None of those were teams relocating to a new city. They were existing cities, existing fan bases. This is the worst team in Major League Baseball as far as record, and what they spend on their players. So, you know, at this point, I'm going to change my attendance. Yeah. So at this point, I'm going to change my tune to just being hopeful that this will be a success in Las Vegas instead of being bitter about the money. We always knew there was going to be some public financing. We fought back. I mean, he wanted 500 million to start, and you know, some of those bonds will get paid back. So that's quite everything, you know, that he originally wanted. So, you know, I guess a little victory, but in the end, you know, it's going to happen. Yeah. What do they say? If nobody's happy, it was a good deal, and I feel like that's kind of where it's at. Like, you know, everybody kind of gave, met in the middle. So overall, I don't think it's the worst, you know, investment. They're not getting taken like some other teams, but just the cost of the stadium still blows my mind. Compared to some of the other smaller markets, which Vegas will be a smaller market, stadium will be smaller, seats wise. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me, you know, but when you spend $2 billion building the sphere, 2.5, when we're done, that's my guess. You know, that's just the way Vegas rolls. So hopefully it looks beautiful. It's a cool place to go see concerts because, you know, the baseball prize suck. There you go. It's going to be another good concert venue. Yeah, it's crazy, but we're losing Tropicana and this is going to happen. Maybe now that they've made this tentative deal, and you know, lawmakers were very specific in saying that now that they've agreed to the details of this, they're going to go through this bill with a fine tooth comb and hear feedback from the public. I don't think that's going to make any difference at all, but, you know, this has not been passed yet. So I guess it still has to go through that. So if people want to fight against it, they can, you know, contact the representatives. But yeah, it looks like it's going to happen. And now maybe we can get a rendering of the stadium. I'm shocked to all of this that they couldn't pay an artist to render this thing. Hello. Hello, they're like, we've been talking about this month, but the A's just switched sites two weeks ago. We don't even know what it's going to look like, but we've been working on it forever. I know they've been working on the numbers. I get it. But I still think it's funny. Yeah, but you usually see like a drawing or something to kind of show you what it might look like. And, you know, it's funny because we had what it was a year, year and a half ago, somebody mocked up when the Tropicana site was rumored. What a stadium could look like on the Tropicana site. And it was just like over the top had these giant baseball. I forget who did that. But somebody was able to, throw that together on Twitter, you know, in a few minutes. Why can't the A's spend a little bit of money and show the community what they're going to get? I think the answers they don't have any idea, right? They don't have a stadium design, you know. Yeah. Okay. So what's your guess? Who's going to throw out the money in Vegas to get it named after them? What do you think, what company or Casino or whatever is going to name the stadium? I don't know because the Casinos haven't really wanted to be behind that, right? MGM has part ownership in T-Mobile Arena, didn't want to put their name on that, wanted to sell the rights. A Legion Airlines came in with the football stadium. So I don't know. I think it'll be some announcement. It's not West-Based Game. No, I don't know. I'm trying to think of big companies that have headquarters in Southern Nevada, but I'm not sure. But I'm sure it'll be a big company. And I don't think it'll be gaming related for obvious reasons. I think the gaming companies want to stay away from the sports and the optics of all of that. But, you know, circus stadium would be fun. Yeah. I mean, that really does have a rhyme to it, you know, it works with what they named everything else. So that'd be kind of funny. Get it done, Derek. Thank you for listening to this episode of the MTM Vegas podcast. Don't forget to check us out on YouTube, youtube.com forward slash miles to memories and MTMVegas.com for all of our Vegas content. Thanks again for listening. Talk to you next time.