Station Casinos opens $780M Durango Casino and Resort in southwest Las Vegas valley

Station Casinos, a subsidiary of publicly traded Red Rock Resorts Inc., is debuting today (Tuesday) the $780 million, 15-story Durango Casino and Resort outside the city’s main resort corridor. The 200-room hotel casino represents the seventh off-strip property in and around Las Vegas for Station Casinos. 

Durango is the first new ground-up casino property to open in Las Vegas since June 2021, when the $4.3 billion, 66-story Resorts World opened on the Strip. The 44-floor Circa opened in 2020 as the first new downtown property in 40 years. Several other familiar Las Vegas casinos have changed hands or rebranded in recent months.

Durango's central feature is the 83,000-square-foot casino, which includes 2,300 slot machines, 63 table games, and an STN-branded race and sportsbook, which has 205 seats, a circular bar, and 4,200 square feet of LED television monitors.

The George, a restaurant created by Las Vegas-based Fine Entertainment, is attached to the sportsbook and includes outdoor patio seating. The new property features 201 hotel rooms, four full-service restaurants, and a 25,000-square-foot food hall with 10 outlets. 

The facility was built on a 71-acre (29-hectare) property that had been sitting vacant since Station Casinos acquired it in 2000. Officials said a second phase could add 300 hotel rooms, and other amenities, such as additional restaurants, meeting space, and a spa.

Durango will be the only major gaming location within a 5-mile radius available to more than 250,000 adults. The only other gaming offerings in the southwest area have been tavern-style restricted locations with no more than 15 slot machines.

The opening of Durango Casino Resort comes 15 years after the company opened its last development. According to Red Rock Resorts President Scott Kreeger, Durango’s opening is the blueprint for Red Rock’s development plans, building resorts in areas around the Las Vegas Valley where the population is growing, the economy is expanding and the company is not represented in the gaming landscape. 

Red Rock owns six development sites that, combined, cover more than 500 acres in regions stretching to the outer ends of Clark County, giving the company a roadmap for future projects. In 2021, Red Rock CEO Frank Fertitta III and vice chairman Lorenzo Fertitta told analysts the goal was to double the company’s size by 2030.

"We’ve always been a company that is willing to buy future development land and hold it in a land bank for the right time," Kreeger said in an interview last week, as reported by The Nevada Independent. "Looking at the dynamic growth of Las Vegas, we think the growth capacity over the next 10 years is going to fuel and kickstart our ability to develop these sites."

Station Casinos' Inspirada Casino rendering, Henderson 

Two such locations are a 48-acre plot within Skye Canyon in the far northwest end of the valley along U.S. Highway 95, just south of the road leading to Kyle Canyon, and 49 acres in the west Henderson community of Inspirada. Last month, the Henderson Planning Commission approved plans for Inspirada Station. The property is similar in design to Durango, but a development date wasn’t provided.

Kreeger didn’t commit to the company’s next project but said a nearly 125-acre site on Cactus Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard is a few years down the road. The location would allow Red Rock to attract local customers and draw visitors off Interstate 15, which borders the west side of the property.

The executive said two of the company’s development sites remain in the "yet to be determined" phase. A 58-acre parcel at the intersection of Flamingo Road and Town Center Drive in Summerlin near the 215 Beltway is designated for a hotel-casino but is viewing distance from Red Rock Resort. It’s also only 6 miles from Durango.

Similarly, the company’s 100 acres on Tropicana Avenue west of Interstate 15 remains on the market. In April, Red Rock thought it had sold 49 acres of the site to the Oakland Athletics for the team's proposed Las Vegas ballpark, only to have the "binding agreement" come undone a month later and the land put back up for sale.