Nevada
Golden Nugget Lake Tahoe begins a top-to-bottom renovation – The Nevada Independent
The general manager of the Golden Nugget Lake Tahoe told gaming regulators last week that “every square foot of the property” would see some type of renovation during its latest redevelopment.
During a Gaming Control Board hearing in Carson City, general manager Jason Sides said the initial redevelopment phase had started on the 539-room hotel and 25,000-square-foot casino. One of the resort’s two towers has been taken offline so the improvements can be made, and he expects the first floor of renovated rooms to be available by October, just in time for the busiest months of the year.
“We have big plans for the property with a significant capital investment,” Sides told the regulators, but he did not provide a cost estimate for the project.
Following its purchase last year by Houston billionaire Tilman Fertitta’s privately held Fertitta Entertainment, the property is now operating under its fifth name since its opening in the 1960s.
Sides said a Salt Grass Steakhouse — one of several dozen restaurant brands owned by Fertitta — will open by the fall. He said Mastro’s Steak House, a high-end Fertitta restaurant brand, will also be added to the property.
On the Golden Nugget website, images show a renovated lobby area and room renderings.
“You’ll see subsequent phases of other construction [throughout the year],” Sides said. “We’ve seen a nice surge of business and a lot of bodies [in the Tahoe market] in the past few weeks. So that’s good to see.”
A representative for Fetitta’s company declined to comment beyond what was said at the hearing. The renovations are expected to be completed by 2025.
The resort has been known as Hard Rock Lake Tahoe since 2015. The Nugget is the last of the four Tahoe casinos visitors see along Highway 50 as they enter Stateline from California. The other three Stateline resorts are Bally’s Lake Tahoe and the Caesars Entertainment-owned Harvey’s and Harrah’s.
Control board senior economic analyst Michael Lawton said the South Tahoe market saw its highest gaming revenue total in 2000 when it produced $352.6 million in gaming revenue.
Lawton said South Tahoe experienced a steep gaming revenue decline — and is almost 31 percent below its peak totals — during the last two decades due to the recession and competition from Northern California tribal casinos. In the last three years, the Sacramento area has seen the opening of three new tribal-owned casinos.
But there is hope the market will rebound.
According to the control board, South Lake Tahoe’s gaming revenue through May is 5.6 percent ahead of the first five months of 2023. Last year, the Tahoe market produced more than $243.8 million in gaming revenue, which was down 7.5 percent from 2022, but is more than 8 percent ahead of 2019, the last full year of gaming revenue for Nevada before the pandemic.
“We saw this as a great opportunity,” Fertitta told state gaming regulators a year ago. “We will take this property and totally transform it. And, as we always do, add the Golden Nugget name on it. We always expect it to be one of the top properties in the market.”
Investments beyond the casino floors
Tahoe has seen recent non-gaming investments.
The Golden Nugget is across from the $80 million Tahoe Blue Event Center. The 132,000-square-foot facility at the corner of U.S. Highway 50 and Lake Parkway will host conferences and concerts and will serve as the 36-game home hockey arena for the expansion ECHL’s Tahoe Knight Monsters.
On the California side of Highway 50, Orlando-based Margaritaville Resorts transformed the 399-room, non-gaming Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel into Margaritaville Resort Lake Tahoe. The renovation gave the location a Key West-style theme at the base of the Heavenly Mountain Ski Resort and adjacent to the casinos just across the state line.
The property is Fertitta’s third Golden Nugget in Nevada, along with resorts in downtown and Laughlin. Fertitta’s company also operates Golden Nugget hotel-casinos in Atlantic City, Biloxi, Mississippi, Lake Charles, Louisiana, and Cripple Creek, Colorado.
Fertitta’s company gained preliminary approval from the control board Wednesday to finance part of last year’s acquisition of the property. The Gaming Commission is expected to take up the matter on July 25.
“Basically, Tillman Fertitta is getting paid back for his initial investment in the project,” said control board member George Assad. “It’s a pretty simple transaction, but just a lot of legal jargon.”
Fertitta announced an all-cash bid for the Hard Rock Lake Tahoe in March 2023, buying the operation from Paragon Gaming. Five months later, the deal was approved by state gaming regulators and the property took on the Golden Nugget name. The property had hundreds of music memorabilia items that were returned to Hard Rock.
The property opened in the 1960s as the Sahara Tahoe. It has also been known as the High Sierra Resort and Lake Tahoe Horizon.
Fertitta Entertainment also has plans to build a 2,420-room, 43-story hotel-casino on 6 acres at Harmon Avenue and the Strip that it acquired in 2022 for $270 million. In May, the company said it was asking Clark County for permission to connect the planned resort to a pedestrian overpass bridge.
The company owns the NBA’s Houston Rockets and its Landry’s hospitality division includes a restaurant segment with roughly 520 outlets and entertainment attractions.
Fertitta, who is a cousin of Red Rock Resorts CEO Frank Fertitta III and Vice Chairman Lorenzo Fertitta, has also owned a 6.1 percent stake in Wynn Resorts since 2022 as a passive investment. He is the second-largest individual shareholder in the company behind Elaine Wynn.
Home prices in Southern Nevada dropped from record highs to end 2025 and less homes sold last year compared with 2024.
Approximately 28,498 existing homes sold in the region last year, which is down almost 9 percent from the 31,305 homes that sold in 2024, according to trade association Las Vegas Realtors, which pulls its data from the Multiple Listing Service. This is the lowest number of homes sold in a year in Southern Nevada since 2007 right before the Great Recession.
The median sale price for a house sold in Southern Nevada in December was approximately $470,000, a 3.9 percent drop from November, according to LVR. By the end of December, LVR reported 6,396 single-family homes listed for sale without any sort of offer. That’s up 28.8 percent from one year earlier.
Despite a down year in sales, the local market did end on a high note.
George Kypreos, president of Las Vegas Realtors, said he is optimistic the housing market could turn around this year. The LVR report noted that home sales in Southern Nevada have seen “peaks and valleys” in recent years, generally declining since 2021 when a record 50,010 properties sold.
“Although it was a relatively slow year for home sales, we’re seeing some encouraging signs heading into the new year,” said Kypreos in a statement. “Buyer activity locally and nationally is starting to improve. Home prices have been fairly stable, and mortgage interest rates ended the year lower than they were the previous year. Most trends are pointing to a more balanced housing market in 2026.”
Freddie Mac currently has the average price for a 30-year fixed-term mortgage rate at 6.1 percent. That mortgage rate has not gone below 6 percent since 2022.
The all-time high median home sale price in Southern Nevada was broken multiple times last year, and currently sits at $488,995 which was last set in November while the condo and townhome market has dropped substantially from an all-time high that was set in October of 2024 ($315,000) to $275,000 to end 2025.
Major residential real estate brokerages are mixed as to where the market will head this year as Zillow, Redfin and Realtor.com have all put out their 2026 projections, and they expect a similar market to 2025. Mortgage rates aren’t expected to drop enough next year to unlock the country’s housing market, new builds will continue to lag, and prices will remain relatively elevated.
Realtor.com said in its report that it predicts a “steadier” housing market next year and a slight shift to a more balanced market. Redfin’s report says 2026 will be the year of the “great housing reset,” which means the start of a yearslong period of “gradual increases in home sales and normalization of prices as affordability gradually improves.”
Finally, Zillow said the housing market should “warm up” in 2026 with “buyers seeing a bit more breathing room and sellers benefiting from price stability and more consistent demand.”
Contact Patrick Blennerhassett at pblennerhassett@reviewjournal.com.
TRUCKEE, Calif. — An avalanche in California’s Sierra Nevada on Monday buried a snowmobiler in snow and killed him, authorities said.
Rescuers responded after a 911 call around 2:20 p.m. reported a possible avalanche near Johnson Peak and Castle Peak in Truckee.
The snowmobiler was initially reported missing but then was found under the snow several minutes later, the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
Fellow recreationists found him but he didn’t survive despite lifesaving efforts, according to the statement.
Emergency personnel were working to safely extract the victim late Monday and to confirm no others were buried.
The sheriff’s office said more avalanches could occur and recommended that people avoid the area.
Each winter, 25 to 30 people die in avalanches in the U.S., according to the National Avalanche Center. The center’s current map shows high risk spots in Utah and Washington and areas of considerable risk in California, Colorado, Idaho and Wyoming.
Nevada Preps Winter Sports Rankings
Records through Sunday
Boys basketball
Class 5A
1. Liberty (10-5)
2. Democracy Prep (9-6)
3. Coronado (5-6)
4. Bishop Gorman (9-7)
5. Desert Pines (11-4)
Class 4A
1. Clark (8-5)
2. Las Vegas High (10-4)
3. Losee (7-5)
4. Faith Lutheran (11-5)
5. Shadow Ridge (11-4)
Class 3A
1. Virgin Valley (9-2)
2. The Meadows (9-5)
3. Boulder City (9-5)
4. GV Christian (8-6)
5. Pahrump Valley (5-7)
Games to watch
All games at 6:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted
Tuesday
Losee at Las Vegas
Faith Lutheran at Liberty
Wednesday
Bishop Gorman at Desert Pines
Virgin Valley at The Meadows
Thursday
Coronado at Mojave
Clark at Durango
Friday
Desert Pines at Las Vegas
Virgin Valley at Boulder City
Saturday
Big City Showdown at Coronado
Liberty vs. Desert Pines, 4:30 p.m.
Bishop Gorman vs. Coronado, 8 p.m.
Girls basketball
Class 5A
1. Bishop Gorman (11-1)
2. Democracy Prep (7-4)
3. Centennial (6-3)
4. Liberty (10-7)
5. Shadow Ridge (3-4)
Class 4A
1. Mojave (9-4)
2. Mater East (10-4)
3. Losee (14-5)
4. Del Sol (13-3)
5. Cimarron-Memorial (9-2)
Class 3A
1. Virgin Valley (6-5)
2. Boulder City (8-6)
3. Moapa Valley (8-4)
4. Coral Academy (7-4)
5. Pahrump Valley (4-7)
Games to watch
All games at 6:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted
Wednesday
Faith Lutheran at Shadow Ridge
Centennial at Liberty
Mojave at Desert Oasis
Thursday
Sierra Vista at Cimarron-Memorial, 5 p.m.
Friday
Mater East at Desert Oasis
Virgin Valley at Boulder City
Saturday
Big City Showdown at Coronado
Bishop Gorman vs. Centennial, 6:15 p.m.
Flag football
Class 5A
1. Desert Oasis (8-0)
2. Shadow Ridge (10-1)
3. Arbor View (10-1)
4. Palo Verde (10-3)
5. Liberty (6-2)
Class 4A
1. Virgin Valley (5-3)
2. Sierra Vista (5-2)
3. Mater East (6-3)
4. Clark (7-4)
5. Spring Valley (5-2)
Games to watch
All games at 5:30 p.m.
Wednesday
Palo Verde at Desert Oasis
Coronado at Bishop Gorman
SECTA at Arbor View
Friday
Shadow Ridge at Palo Verde
Canyon Springs at Arbor View
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