Barden takes the helm at Fitzgeralds properties

Monday, Dec. 10, 2001 | 11:13 a.m.

Jennie Sute was having a good run at the three-card poker table at the Fitzgeralds hotel-casino Thursday night when a man with a familiar face made his way into the casino.

"I knew who he was because I had seen him on television back home and in the newspaper," said Sute, a Trenton, Mich., resident vacationing in Las Vegas. "He came right up to our table and asked us what we liked about the place."

The man was Detroit businessman Don Barden and in less than 24 hours he was to take possession of the 638-room downtown hotel and its 42,000-square-foot casino.

"I told him that we liked the fact that the dealers here were so friendly," Sute said. "I was here back in February and was playing blackjack and the dealer was helping a player learn the game. I wrote a letter about the dealer that they used in the company newsletter."

Sute was in a crowd with about 50 Fitzgeralds employees and Fremont Street Experience passers-by Friday afternoon when Barden formally introduced himself as the new owner of the Fitzgeralds and its two sister properties with the same name in Black Hawk, Colo., and Tunica, Miss. Barden and members of his executive team addressed the crowd from a new stage erected as part of the Fremont Street Experience just outside the front door of the hotel.

Barden, who became the first black person to wholly own a national casino company with the acquisition, used an easygoing style to describe some of his plans for his downtown property, which will become the national headquarters for his company. He said he plans to make monthly visits and maintain an office in Las Vegas and will be on the lookout for more acquisition deals here.

"There's one of our three-card poker players," said Barden, flashing a smile to Sute and her husband. "And there's some of our fine team members," he said, acknowledging a handful of the 978 employees who work the five restaurants, four bars and a casino that has 953 slot machines, 23 table games, a sports book and a keno lounge.

Barden, 57, who capitalized on real estate and construction investments in Detroit and held that city's first cable television franchise, also owns the Majestic Star Casino in Gary, Ind. He made an unsuccessful bid to acquire one of Detroit's casino licenses in the late 1990s.

Last year he agreed to buy the three Fitzgeralds properties for $149 million. He said while the Fitzgeralds name would be used for now, he acknowledged that "the Majestic name looks pretty good up there" when it flashed on the Fitzgeralds electronic sign at the front entrance of the casino.

Barden reiterated what he told gaming regulators in October -- that he plans to cross-market his casino properties and funnel customers to Las Vegas, which he considers to be "the big leagues" of the industry.

While Barden said his strategy would be to attract a variety of customers, his list of entertainment draws are Motown, soul and rhythm-and-blues stars.

He talked of inviting groups such as the Four Tops to play from the stage where he was standing and told the crowd he lived "just a three-wood away from Aretha Franklin" on a golf course lot. He also acknowledged that his resemblance to Smokey Robinson led him to develop a friendship with the singer.

Barden said he also envisions staging boxing events under the Fremont Street Experience canopy some day.

He also said he has no plans to cut his Las Vegas staff and that he would leave it to his local management team to determine how it would work with unions. Some workers at the Fitzgeralds Las Vegas and the Majestic Star are represented by the Culinary Union.

The 34-story building that houses Fitzgeralds -- Nevada's tallest building at 360 feet until the Stratosphere Tower was built -- opened in 1980 as the Sundance hotel-casino. The privately held Fitzgeralds Gaming Corp. bought the property in 1988 and attached an Irish theme to it, staging a grand opening on St. Patrick's Day.

Fitzgeralds Gaming had a hotel-casino in Reno as well as Black Hawk and Tunica, but the Reno property wasn't included in the sale to Barden when the deal was negotiated.

Las Vegas was the first stop on a three-day tour of the new acquisitions by Barden. He was scheduled to be in Black Hawk Saturday and Tunica Sunday.