For the second time in 2 1/2 years, the marquee at what was once the International and then Las Vegas Hilton is in for a major change.
Announced this morning is the sale of Las Vegas Hotel (LVH) from Goldman Sachs to David Siegel’s Westgate Resorts. No terms of the deal were disclosed, but it is believed that the purchase price is $150 million to $170 million.
On Tuesday morning at 8:30, the famous marquee along Paradise Road will be stripped of the LVH letters, and a Westgate Resorts logo will replace that brand.
Reports of Westgate officials winning the bid on what is now the Westgate Las Vegas and spending time coordinating its takeover have been seeping out of the hotel for several weeks. It is expected that Westgate will maintain the casino and SuperBook operations.
Having opened as the International in 1969 under the ownership of Kirk Kerkorian, the hotel took on the name Las Vegas Hilton in 1971. The resort was previously owned by Colony Capital, which took over operations in 2004, but lost its licensing agreement with Hilton Worldwide in the summer of 2011. The formal changing of the hotel’s name and lettering on that marquee occurred in January 2012.
Westgate Resorts is a timeshare company rather than a casino operator. Siegel’s company once owned Westgate at Planet Hollywood but in 2012 was forced to sell that property to Hilton as the recession cut into timeshare business.
Hilton has renamed that property Elara, and Siegel has wound up renaming a property that was once itself called the Hilton.
Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.
Join the Discussion:
Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.
Full comments policy