Sunday night Vegas Club

By (contact)

Saturday, Aug. 15, 2015 | 1:16 p.m.

For five years, owners of The D Las Vegas talked to officials with the Tamares Group, expressly GM Jonathan Jossel, about buying the Las Vegas Club. That back-and-forth finally intensified about a month ago, and Friday it was announced that Greg and Derek Stevens snapped up the old hotel-casino at Main and Fremont streets.

What’s next? A wait, shutdown and review of the property.

That shutdown is happening sooner than expected. Though Derek Stevens said today that it would be 60 days before the Las Vegas Club would close, Jossel said plans are in place for the hotel’s table games to close by Sunday night, and the full casino would cease operations by Wednesday night, pending approval by the state Gaming Commission.

Asked if that meant Las Vegas Club’s casino would be entirely shut down by Thursday, Jossel said, “That is the plan, yes.”

Earlier, Stevens talked of his plans to take over the property.

“We want to evaluate the best use of the property and how to renovate what we have; we need to look through and look at the condition of the structure, that kind of thing, ” Stevens said during a phone conversation today. “Tamares is still operating under a 60-day lease, and they are going to wind down operations and move most of their employees over to the Plaza (which also is a Tamares property).”

Las Vegas Club’s 410-room hotel has been closed for about two years. The property is one of the city’s oldest hotel-casinos, opening in 1930, and was the first Las Vegas casino to install a neon sign one year after that opening.

The hotel has a recognizable design. Its familiar stadium façade is visible from Oscar’s Beef Booze & Broads across Main Street.

“When we take over, it will be completely shut down, ” Stevens said. “There will be some demolition and renovation, but that will be several months down the line.”

Meantime, something special is being planned for The D.

Stevens is in Brussels, Belgium, on a business trip and said, “There is something at The D kicking up, and it’s something we’re bringing back to The D from Brussels.”

Expect a sculpture/water feature effect. One expects that it will work in symmetry with the Long Bar, which also is something of a fluid feature.